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Cabinet Member Petition Hearing – 16 October 2024
Part I – Public
NORTH WAY, MORRIS AVENUE AND WOR RALL LANE UXBRIDGE -
PETITION REQUESTING A REDUCTION IN THE SPEED LIMIT TO 20MPH
Cabinet Member(s) Councillor Jonathan Bianco
Cabinet Portfolio(s) Cabinet Member for Property, Highways and Transport
Officer Contact(s) Steve Austin – Place Directorate
Papers with report Appendix A – Location Plan
HEADLINES
Summary
To inform the Cabinet Member that a petition has been received
requesting a change in the speed limit to 20mph.
Putting our Residents
First
This report supports the Council objective of Our People. The
request can be considered as part of the Council’s annual
programme for on-street parking controls.
Financial Cost Should speed and traffic surveys be commissioned, costs will be
c.£85 per location, managed within existing Transportation Service
revenue budgets.
Relevant Select
Committee
Corporate Resources and Infrastructure Select Committee
Relevant Ward(s) Uxbridge
RECOMMENDATIONS
That the Cabinet Member for Property, Highways and Transport:
1) Meets with petitioners and listens to their request to reduce the speed limit to 20
mph.
2) Subject to the outcome of the above , decides if officers should commission
independent 24/7 speed and traffic surveys on North Way at a location agreed with
petitioners and Ward Councillors.
Reasons for recommendations
The Petition Hearing will provide a valuable opportunity to hear directly from the petitioners
regarding their concerns and suggestions.
Cabinet Member Petition Hearing – 16 October 2024
Part I – Public
Alternative options considered / risk management
None at this stage.
Select Committee comments
None at this stage.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
1) A petition with 24 signatures has been submitted to the Council signed under the following
heading:
“We the undersigned, petition Hillingdon Council to reduce the speed limit to 20mph on
North Way, Morris Avenue and Worrall Lane, Uxbridge”.
The lead petitioner has helpfully provided the following additional information:
“North Way, Uxbridge leads to Morris Avenue and other residential roads via traffic lights.
As a short road of only a few houses, a speed limit of 30mph is too fast. To ensure the
safety of residents and pedestrians, the speed limit on North Way, Morris Avenue and
Worrall Lane needs to be reduced to 20mph. Currently, vehicles speed across North Way
to make it past the green light. It is currently unsafe for children, the elderly with disabilities
or other people with slower reaction times.
A parked vehicle has already been hit by a driver speeding, luckily no one was injured.
However, we would like the Council to take action and make this change before an accident
occurs.”
2) North Way is a mainly residential road of approximately 15 properties. At the northern end
of North Way there is a railway bridge over the Metropolitan and Piccadilly Line
underground railway services. The bridge is only one lane wide and is controlled by signals,
installed as part of the development on the other side of the bridge which was constructed
approximately 15 years a go. The length of North Way from Honeycroft Hill to the traffic
signals is approximately 80 metres. A plan of the area is attached as Appendix A.
3) Officers have interrogated the most recent police recorded collision data for North Way for
the last five years and there was one recorded incident, which took place on 23 June 2020,
involving two vehicles and the severity was reported as ‘slight’ . However, in light of the
petition, i t is suggested that the Cabinet Member may wish to hear the testimony of
petitioners and their local Ward Councillors to understand in greater detail their road safety
concerns.
4) Although the petition has not requested traffic calming measures, colleagues in the Police
have clear guidelines on what they expect local highway authorities to del iver when
considering the reduction in speed limits to 20 mph. Inserted below is the information from
National Police Chiefs Council ‘Speed Enforcement Policy Guidelines’
“Speed limits are only one element of speed management and local speed limits should not be set
in isolation. They should be part of a package of other measures to manage speed which includes
Cabinet Member Petition Hearing – 16 October 2024
Part I – Public
the engineering, visible interventions and landscaping standards that respect the needs of all road
users and raise th e driver’s awareness of their environment, together with education, driver
information, training and publicity.”
“Altering a limit with simply a sign without making the new limit clear to all drivers who may use
the road will risk high levels of offending. Many will be unaware of their behaviour, and may well
have complied if the site / limit was clear. This will simply leave vulnerable road users exposed to
unnecessary higher speeds and leave the police with a large-scale enforcement issue, which cannot
be contained. National Guidance to local authorities on installing adequately engineered 20mph is
unambiguous in not supporting unclear or inappropriate 20mph limit / zones. Neither does it
support an increased demand on police forces to carry out routine en forcement where there is, in
the opinion of the police, insufficient interventions to make the limit obvious to visiting motorists
and achieve a high level of self-enforcement.”
“The police service has to ensure all resources are used effectively in respon ding to community
priorities. They should use intelligence on levels and locations of offending to identify persistent
and high harm speeding offenders and target their enforcement in all speed limits; however, in those
where the driver’s awareness is lowe red due to the omission of measures to manage speed there
will be no routine enforcement, only that necessary to eliminate persistent high harm speeding
motorists.”
“As with all limits, if the site does not look or feel like the limit imposed then there will be larger
scale offending and routine prosecution seen as inappropriate or quite simply over the top. It is for
local authorities to appropriately sign and if necessary engineer a limit, leaving the police to target
the persistent and deliberate offender, together with achieving the very highest level of compliance
and safety for other road users.”
The Council’s Cabinet also confirmed on 25 July 2024, that the Lond on Borough of
Hillingdon, in considering whether to introduce a 20 mile per hour speed restriction, will, as
Council policy, adopt the approach set out in statutory guidance issued by the Secretary
of State for Transport pursuant to section 18 of the Traff ic Management Act 2004. In
exercising this, Cabinet and/or the responsible Cabinet Member will expect to be provided
with evidence that introducing a lower speed limit will have a beneficial effect on community
safety (for example, outside schools) and that the proposals are supported by residents.
5) Within the context of the above , the Cabinet Mem ber may be minded to commission
independent 24/7 speed and traffic surveys on North Way at a location agreed with
petitioners and Ward Councillors.
6) As the Cabinet Member will be aware, independent traffic surveys are a reliable and well-
established means to understand the real situation on the ground. These surveys generally
use specialist equipment, including pneumatic tubes which are mounted temporarily on the
road surface, fitted transversely across the whole width of the carriageway. These devices
are installed for a period of at least a week or ten days and monitor traffic movements on
a ’24/7’ basis. The discreet equipment is sufficiently sophisticated that not only can it record
traffic speeds at any given time, but it also records the size and type of vehicles, from
motorcycles to large multi-axel lorries.
7) It is also strongly recommended that , if they have not yet done so, residents raise their
concerns d irectly with the Metropolitan Police because they alone have the necessary
powers to tackle speeding and inconsiderate driving in general if this is the case in North
Way, although the results of any possible speed survey will be shared with colleagues in
Cabinet Member Petition Hearing – 16 October 2024
Part I – Public
the Police. will be . Physical t raffic calming can be an effective tool, but it can also have
unwelcome side effects such as an increase in noise caused by traffic passing through
especially larger vehicles.
Financial Implications
Subject to the outcome of discussions with petitioners, the Cabinet Member may request the
commissioning of speed and traffic surveys. The current cost of these is c.£85 per location, with
spend managed within existing Transportation revenue budgets.
RESIDENT BENEFIT & CONSULTATION
The benefit or impact upon Hillingdon residents, service users and communities
To allow the Cabinet Member to consider the petitioners’ request.
Consultation carried out or required
None at this stage.
CORPORATE CONSIDERATIONS
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance has reviewed the recommendations to this report and concurs with the
financial implications as set out above.
Legal
Legal Services confirm that there are no specific legal implications arising from this report.
Whenever necessary legal advice is given in relation to specific issues as they arise to ensure
that the Council always meets its legal obligations.
Infrastructure / Asset Management
None at this stage.
Comments from other relevant service areas
None at this stage.
BACKGROUND PAPERS
Petition received.
TITLE OF ANY APPENDICES
Appendix A – Location plan
Text extracted automatically from the PDF, so layout, tables and images are not shown. Open the original PDF on LB Hillingdon’s website.