North Ayrshire Tory claims 20mph limit is part of 'climate change madness'
Bold efforts by the North Ayrshire Tory Group to put the brakes on the Cabinet's support of the Scottish Government's National Strategy for 20mph in Urban areas and approve the implementation of 20mph speed limits stalled on Thursday.
At a fiery meeting of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee, the Conservative Group asked Cabinet to: Suspend the implementation of the 20mph speed limit across all roads, pending the outcome of a full review of cost effectiveness, enforceability, and public consultation and to commission an impact assessment as well as taking feedback from a public consultation.
Supporting the call-in, North Coast cllr Todd Ferguson said he had been contacted by local business and constituents concerned about the plans.
He said: 'As Conservatives we fully support efforts on road safety but believe they must be targeted, evidence-based and proportionate and what is being suggested for the blanket 20mph limit simply does not meet that criteria.
'In North Ayrshire road fatalities remain consistently low although one death is one death too many.
'UK wide we see that when you change signs it limits reduction of speed by only one mile per hour and that changes to 10mph if you include traffic calming but that is not being proposed.
'We had success in Burnhouse and Gateside in getting changes to speed but it did not change behaviour - you had a driver going at 90mph in Burnhouse. We need enforcement but resources are already stretched."
Tory Group Leader Cameron Inglis suggested the policy was "smoke and mirrors" and was all about pleasing the Scottish Government by persuading people to stop using their cars as "part of this climate change madness".
Tony Gurney, Cabinet member for the Environment and Green Economy said: 'This is more than a transport policy - it's an investment in public safety.
'This is not a blanket, it has been consulted throughout North Ayrshire. Implementation is recommended only where we see a clear safety benefit. We will implement 20mph zones and that is an opportunity for enforcement by police.
'It is not about flowing traffic, it is about safety. According to the Department of Transport the chances of pedestrians being killed more than halves when speed is reduced to 20mph from 30mph.
"A child hit by a car has a one in five chance of dying in 30mph in 20mph drops dramatically to one in 40.
'The British Medical Journal links 20mph to a 40 per cent reduction in road casualties.
"Lives are saved, injuries prevented, NHS costs reduced. Lower speeds give drivers time to react. That extra second can be different between a close call and a tragedy."
Independent cllr Donald L Reid said: "I was in office with the Police from 1967 to 1999 and this encompasses what it is all about, speed kills.
"Anything we can do to reduce speed must be a priority. If we can keep speed down to 20mph that is sensible and with a bit of hard work we can probably achieve this.
"We saw how drink driving became unacceptable, how wearing seatbelts became the norm and helmets for cyclists and motorcyclists helped save many lives, I don't see how we can't make our streets safer.'
A motion to reject the call-in, allowing the policy to stand, defeated an amendment by the Tory Group to accept the call-in and send the matter back to the cabinet for further consideration by six votes to three.
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