Decision details

Petitions

Decision Maker: Traffic Management Sub-Committee

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: No

Is subject to call in?: No

Decisions:

(a)      Petition for Tackling Speeding on St Bartholomew’s Road

The Executive Director for Economic Growth and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report on the receipt of a petition, asking the Council to tackle speeding on St Bartholomew’s Road.

The report stated that on 4 January 2023 a petition had been submitted to the Council that had contained 64 signatures, 43 from paper forms and 21 from an electronic form.  The petition read as follows:

Cars frequently drive too fast on St Bartholomew’s Road which has a 20 mph speed limit. It is not uncommon for the cars at the side of the road to be driven into and recently a driver rolled their car over. Reading Council please can you tackle speeding on St Bartholomew’s Road.”

The report explained that addressing the issue of speeding motorists was particularly challenging for a local authority.  Speed enforcement, which included the placement and operation of fixed and mobile enforcement equipment, could only be carried out by the Police.  With funding and resource limitation, alongside other policing priorities, enforcement could not currently be relied upon to provide a sustained method in which to deter speeding.  The Council had been, and had continued, to lobby government and Police for an increase in civil powers of enforcement against speeding motorists.  Local authorities had limited tools to address speeding, which were predominantly limited to the implementation of physical speed calming ‘features’, such as speed humps and it was understandable that such features would not be welcomed by many as they were indiscriminate and impacted on the surrounding environment.  A scheme of features could also be resource intensive and costly for local authorities to design, install and maintain.   However, until mooted mandatory technologies were in place to override motorist inputs and limit vehicle speeds, and/or autonomously impose fines on the offending motorist, there appeared to be no alternative to these physical measures.

The Council had previously received a request for additional traffic calming on St Bartholomew’s Road and the Sub-Committee had agreed to add the request to the Council’s regularly reported Requests for Traffic Management Measures list.  Currently, there was no allocated funding for the development and delivery of the requested changes.  However, it was acknowledged that there was a demand for speed reduction features on St Bartholomew’s Road and the report proposed that the existing entry on the Requests for Traffic Management Measures was adjusted to reflect the receipt of the petition and the entry updated to reflect the latest road casualty dated for the road that had been supplied by the police.

At the invitation of the Chair the petition organiser, Melissa Marselle, addressed the Sub-Committee on behalf of the petitioners.

Resolved –

 

(1)      That the report be noted;

 

(2)      That the existing request for additional traffic calming on St Bartholomew’s Road contained within the regularly-reported ‘Requests for Traffic Management Measures’ be updated to reflect the receipt of this petition;

 

(3)      That the lead petitioner be informed of the decisions of the Sub-Committee, following publication of the agreed minutes of the meeting;

 

(4)      That no public inquiry be held into the proposals.

Publication date: 26/01/2023

Date of decision: 12/01/2023

Decided at meeting: 12/01/2023 - Traffic Management Sub-Committee

Accompanying Documents: