NEW 20mph speed limits will be introduced throughout Oxford at the start of next month, it emerged this week.
Work on introducing 20mph speed limits on all but Oxford’s major radial routes will begin in three weeks’ time when county council officers begin installing 1,450 new signs in residential roads as part of the £233,000 scheme.
The current 30 limits will still apply on all or large parts of main routes such as the Botley, Abingdon Woodstock, Iffley and Marston roads.
The announcement comes in the week it emerged that Oxfordshire County Council was considering altering speed limits on more than half of the county’s rural roads as part of a major review to improve road safety.
Road safety campaigners welcomed the 20mph limit announcement, however, they pledged to keep pushing for a blanket 20mph limit across the entire city.
Paul Cullen, the founding co-ordinator of Life begins at 20, which has fought a two-year campaign for the 20mph speed limits, said: “September 1 cannot come soon enough.
“We fought long and hard for this to be introduced and there’s been national recognition of the value of 20mph limits from the Government when it issued its road safety consultation recommending lower limits in residential areas across the country.
“We feel vindicated that we have been at the front of this movement for change and the effort we have made to spread the good news about 20mph has been heard in other places.
“The ultimate objective is a city-wide 20mph limit.
“We’ll be lobbying for an extension of it into the bus routes and main roads once its success has been proven.”
County Hall believes the move will help improve road safety. There were two fatal, 81 serious and 583 slight accidents between 2006 and 2008 on the roads that will be covered by the new 20mph limits.
The authority also hopes it will improve the quality of life for Oxford residents and encourage more people to walk and cycle to reduce congestion and pollution.
However, one driving expert believes the move will bring gridlock to the city.
Colin Prickett, 58, a driving instructor for the AA in Headington, said: “The whole scheme is a fundamental mistake. From September onwards it is going to take people longer to get in and out of Oxford and that will mean more cars in the city at any one time, causing hold-ups and congestion.
“It is going to cause chaos.”
County councillor Ian Hudspeth, cabinet member for transport, said: “We had been receiving calls from local people for some time to consider 20mph speed limits.
“The fact the Government wants similar schemes introduced elsewhere puts Oxfordshire very much in the vanguard.”
This week county transport officers also announced they were considering imposing lower limits on many of Oxfordshire’s roads following a year-long review of speed limits on every A and B road in the county.
The proposals could mean 62 stretches on 34 of the county’s A and B roads seeing speed limit reductions.
Council officers have also proposed increasing speed limits on 17 stretches of 13 of Oxfordshire’s roads.
The number of road deaths in Oxfordshire increased from 34 in 2007 to 42 in 2008.
Last night, Gill Wootton, the head of roads policing at Thames Valley Police, said the force would only enforce the new 20mph speed limits in Oxford on roads engineered with “appropriate traffic-calming measures” and it would seek to educate drivers in the first instance, rather than fine them.
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