East Sussex councillors express support for 20mph limits on new housing developments

County councillors have expressed support for introducing default 20mph speed limits on new housing developments.

On Tuesday (February 10), East Sussex County Council unanimously agreed a motion put forward by Liberal Democrat Kathryn Field and Green Party councillor Brett Wright.

It called on the authority to work with district and borough councils to introduce new planning policies linked to lower speed limits and to review its approach on the issue, once new guidance is issued by the national government.

Introducing the motion, Cllr Field said: “The preamble says, in four bullet points, why many people — experts, not just myself, my group and other members of this council — believe that 20mph limits are very appropriate in certain settings.

“They improve quality of life, they improve road safety. If you are knocked over by a car going 20mph you are less likely to be killed than if one is going at 30mph, which in most residential areas is the default speed limit.”

She added: “I think it was the cost factor that stopped the administration, five or six years ago, when we asked for a default 20mph limit over the county … they said it would be too expensive.

“Doing it this way hits an awful lot of roads, affects an awful lot of people and does it at the outset, so nothing needs changing. It is done, it is clear and people can benefit from it right from the beginning when they buy their new houses.”

Cllr Field said the motion had been revised ahead of the meeting.  In its initial form,  it would have seen the council as a whole ask cabinet members to “consider implementing a maximum speed limit of 20mph when adopting roads in new developments.”

In its revised form, it saw the council call on its “executive” to review the authority’s existing approach to setting local speed limits in new developments, as soon as updated guidance is issued by the government. This guidance is expected to be updated soon, councillors heard.

The motion also saw the council call on its executive to ‘seek to influence’ the content of emerging local plans — key policy documents developed by local planning authorities — so that principles around low speed zones are included within them. This would include, but not be limited to, 20mph zones, councillors heard.

During the debate, Conservative councillor Paul Redstone said the change had come about as a result of “cross party working” prompted by his group’s concerns around the mechanics of implementing such a policy. 

He set out how his group’s position was that the setting of speed limits is linked to road conditions once they already exist, so a default 20mph limit would need to stem from planning policies on road design.

Cllr Redstone said: “It makes very good sense for roads in new residential developments to be designed for 20mph … but the county council is only a consultee during the planning stage of such an estate; we have no authority over it.

“It is the planning authorities — currently district and borough councils — which have authority to set the design speeds. Such councils have planning policies related to this.”

He added: “As the Conservative group, we therefore prepared an amendment which has the same underlying aim, but which reflected the reality of the planning process; the development, adoption and speed limit process.

“In the revised motion, there are some parts of the preamble which we believe are possibly misleading or mistaken, but these are not part of the core motion. The amended motion is much more workable and is something that I — and I believe my colleagues in the Conservative group — can support. 

“I am delighted and thank Cllr Field for agreeing to include our revised text in the motion, which we believe strengthens the laudable aims of the motion as well as reflecting reality.”

For her part, Cllr Field thanked Cllr Redstone for ‘cross party input’, saying she believed it had “strengthened the motion.”
When put to the vote, the motion was agreed unanimously.

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