From:
Cllr Harcourt Wesley <wesley.harcourt@lbhf.gov.uk>
Date:
3 January 2016 at 13:01:08 GMT
To:
Resident3
Cc:
Cllr Cowan Stephen <stephen.cowan@lbhf.gov.uk>
Subject:
RE: NO to borough-wide 20 mph!
Dear
Resident3
Thank
you for taking the trouble to write. I have read your comments much of which
was raised as part of
the discussion that we had at out Policy and Accountability Committee meetings on the
subject and which
were attended by many members of the
public. Let me set out some information about what we’re actually
doing as I am afraid that there is much
misinformation being circulated at the moment.
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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