-----Original
Message-----
From:
Cllr Harcourt Wesley <wesley.harcourt@lbhf.gov.uk>
Date:
Wed, 30 Dec 2015 12:20:41
To:
Resident1
Subject:
RE: NO borough-wide 20 mph !
Dear
Resident1,
Thank
you for taking the trouble to write. You do not give any reason behind your
objection so perhaps I
can add some detail about what we are doing
regarding the introduction of a 20mph limit in the
borough.
We
are currently going through the detailed consultation responses and have yet to
decide what to do.
Indeed,
we consulted residents on our manifesto commitment (see attached page 12) to
extend the
20mph speed limit. I don't know why
anyone would say we have already decided to "bring in a 20mph
speed limit on all of its [the council's]
roads", or that we are planning to not respect the results of the
consultation or that the
consultation concluded that 55% of people are against an extension of the
20mph speed limit. All those statements
are thoroughly untrue.
We
gave residents three options asking if people agreed to extend 20mph speed
limit. The answers that
came back can be summarised as:
* Yes to all roads (45%)
* Yes but not on the roads listed by each
person who responded (26%)
* No, not on any more roads (29%)
So
in short there is a 71% majority to introduce the 20mph on all the roads that
were not specified by
the residents who kindly took part in the
consultation. Within the 26% there are some roads which lots
of people specified as not wanting a speed limit
change and there are others with only a small number
of objections. I have asked officials to carry
out a full analysis of those figures and, as I say, my
colleagues and I are yet to
have a meeting to conclude what the council will do.
I'm
afraid those that are putting out leaflets saying we're not respecting the
results of the public
consultation either don't know
what they're talking about or are deliberately seeking to mislead people.
Either
way it is not a sensible way to approach this important matter.
The
consultation on extending the 20mph speed limit on some or all roads was
extensively publicised
and not just by the council but by people both
for and against it. The council put posters up on poster
sites all around the borough, they put mini
lamp post signs up, they sent out thousands of emails and
delivered roughly 80,000
leaflets to households and businesses in the borough. The consultation ran
from 9 June for nine weeks and was
followed by the two new public Policy and Accountability
Committee (PAC) meetings on this subject.
The
PAC meetings were well attended by people who came from all perspectives both
for and against
and residents were able to play a full role in
the discussions. You might find the paper that went before
the public PAC meeting interesting:
http://democracy.lbhf.gov.uk/documents/s71173/20%20MPH%20Report.pdf
Any
extension of the current 20mph zones will not be a revenue generating scheme as
I hope the report
makes clear. We are solely looking at how
to improve road safety and reducing speeds is a critically
important tactic available to
us. Those most in danger on our roads are pedestrians (particularly
children) and cyclists. Any extension of any
20mph zones will be paid for by Transport for London.
We're
actually keen to put more money into residents and business' pockets, not
stealth tax them which
is something we campaigned against the last
council administration on.
We
are a new administration elected last year but in that time we were the only
administration in
London to cut council tax last year. We cut meals on
wheels prices by 33% and have in fact cut 16 of the
council charges we inherited. In our first
year in office we have also frozen 139 other council charges
and 90% of all council charges, as measured by
the income they raise, will be cut in real terms. We
abolished the £12 per hour
home care charge for elderly and disabled residents and you may be pleased
to know that we also abolished the rather odd
charges for residents to use a fitness trainer in local
parks. As a motorist you will be pleased to
know that, following our election win in May 2014, we
blocked the scheduled introduction of a 14.7%
increase in parking charges that was meant to be
introduced in June 2014 as you
can read here:
http://www.thecowanreport.com/2014/12/h-conservatives-planned-147-parking.html
So
far from trying to ignore the public we are going much further than the council
has ever gone before
to actively engage our residents before we make
major decisions. I am keen that we act in accordance
with public opinion on all matters and
plan to do that on this issue.
Thanks
again for writing in. I assure you we will take your comments into account.
Wesley
Councillor
Wesley Harcourt
Cabinet
Member for Environment, Transport & Residents Services
LB
Hammersmith & Fulham
King
Street
London
W6
9JU
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