A leading councillor has criticised Rishi Sunak’s announcement to halt the introduction of 20mph zones and claimed the Government has “misjudged the mood of rural England”.
Peter Thornton, the cabinet member for highways and assets on Westmorland and Furness Council, told a meeting of the highways and transport strategic board that he had received requests across the political spectrum to implement 20mph zones.
He said: “When I look at all the requests I’ve got for limits, there is no correlation between these requests and people’s politics.
“This isn’t just the liberal woke left who are asking for 20mph limits, it’s right across the political spectrum so I think the government have misjudged the mood of rural England,” said councillor Thornton, who represents Kendal Strickland and Fell for the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Sunak had previously said in an interview with a national tabloid newspaper that he was “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists”.
Mr Sunak said: “What we want to do now is make sure that all these hare-brained schemes that are forced on local communities, whether it’s low traffic neighbourhoods, blanket 20mph speed limits, all of that … needs to stop.
“What we want to make sure is that local communities are not having these things imposed upon them, forced on them. We’ve seen that happening in Wales. That’s not right. And we’re going to take a different approach to this.”
Cllr Thornton added that the council was merely following Government guidance on the introduction of 20mph zones.
He said: “Everything I’ve heard from the Government has fitted in with what we’re actually going to do. What they’ve said is ‘you can implement a 20mph limit where there is public demand, where it’s needed, logical and sensible’ and that is exactly the policy of this council.”
Councillor Janet Battye added: “A lot of our villages and parishes have been asking for 20mph speed limits for quite a long time and it’s something we really want to act on.”
Westmorland and Furness Council approved a new policy in September to make it easier for local communities to introduce 20mph speed limits, including any in Eden.
