VILLAGES and fast through traffic are not a good combination. So over 50 parish councils across North Yorkshire have signed up for a campaign called 20 is Plenty. They believe that, in their rural communities, low speeds should be the norm.

Those parish councillors put a great deal of unpaid time in to work on behalf of their village. They, and those they represent, might reasonably expect North Yorkshire Highways to take their views seriously and to work closely with them to try and reduce traffic speeds and improve controls.

Instead, North Yorkshire Country Council has dismissed their concerns and taken the view that it can only implement speed limits where driving conditions mean that drivers will already be inclined to drive at a slow pace.

This is a bizarre argument. If traffic was naturally going to drive slowly then no controls would be needed. If traffic speeds then we shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders. We need to keep people safe by slowing down that traffic. That means enforcing rules the way we currently do on motorways and in 30mph areas..

North Yorkshire is one of the very few local authorities anywhere in the country that refuses to use fixed speed cameras. That means that dangerous stretches of road such as the A6068 through Cowling or the A65 through Hellifield are left with a constant flow of traffic thundering through at dangerous speeds. Instead of just shrugging shoulders and accepting that our council should be working to protect its residents.

If North Yorkshire County Council is so large and remote that it treats the concerns of Parish Councillors with such disrespect it does not bode well for the plans to create a new North Yorkshire Council that will be even harder for local communities to influence.

 

Cllr Andy Brown (Green Party) 

Cononley