TALKING POLITICS

JOHN KNIGHT, GREEN PARTY

WHEN we’ve gone round on our regular surveys of residents to see what issues matter to them, 70 per cent of people have told us they are concerned about road safety.

People really want safer and calmer roads, particularly the narrow residential streets in the older parts of town, where cars accelerating up to top speed are causing a real danger. In particular, residents have told us about problems on Bond Street, Crompton Road and Great King Street - these roads are a real concern, the council is not doing enough and is not listening.

Many councils across the north west and around the country have adopted the ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ policy, a 20mph speed limit is now standard in residential streets across Manchester, Warrington and in towns throughout Lancashire and Cheshire West.

Our Cheshire neighbours have seen 65 per cent fewer road traffic collisions, with a 40 per cent reduction in the numbers killed and seriously injured and a 69 per cent reduction in slight injuries. However, Cheshire East Council announced earlier this year that they have no plans to introduce similar reduced-speed zones in our towns, including Macclesfield.

According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, a pedestrian hit by a vehicle travelling at 30mph is nine times more likely (45 per cent) to be killed than at 20mph (5 percent).

Of course, lower speeds make accidents less likely anyway. Therefore, we’re launching our Safer Streets campaign.

We’re asking residents to identify the streets where there are problems.

Armed with this information, we will campaign vigorously to ensure that these streets have safe speed limits set on them and measures to enforce this so that residents are safe to walk on the streets where they live. Please contact me at John.Knight@greenparty. org.uk and together we’ll get on with making our streets safer.