Proposed 20 Mph Speed Limit Moves A Step Closer

Hounslow Council plans to reduce speeding and rat-running on residential roads

A public meeting to discuss Hounslow Council's plans to introduce a 20 mph speed limit on residential roads in the borough will be held at the Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow, from 5-8pm on 30 June. Residents and businesses are invited to attend.

A public consultation is about to start on July 1st on the issue which is likely to affect several residential roads in Chiswick.

While many of the borough's schools are already within 20mph zones, the council is considering extending the speed limit across all residential roads which do not carry through traffic and in some sections which do carry through traffic and where there is a lot of pedestrian activity.

The event will include information about road safety, with one-to-one advice available, and presentations on the consultation from the council and Hounslow police. There will also be a question and answer session.

If you cannot attend the meeting but would like to have your say, visit www.hounslow.gov.uk from 1 July. The consultation will be open from 1 July to 30 September.

Residents in some areas, such as Thames Road, have long demanded a 20 mph limit be introduced as the road is often used as a "rat run", from the A316 to the South Circular and Kew Bridge, leading to congestion in an area where there is a nursery and primary school at Strand on the Green. You can read more on the Council's plans on their web site. The first phase was introduced early last year and included streets in, or near, already traffic-calmed streets.

Local streets proposed include several in residential areas off Chiswick High Road, including Duke Road, Devonshire Street and Dale Street in the Glebe Estate, to streets in Grove Park including Elmwood Road, Fauconberg Road, Sutton Court, and Burnaby Gardens.

Enforcement would be by the Police in the same way as the existing 30 mph speeding limit is enforced. Speeding is a road traffic offence punishable by fixed penalty fines and points on the offender's driving licences.

The area around Thames Road 

Some 175 miles of residential streets, about a quarter of London’s roads, already have 20mph limits. If the speed limit were only introduced near schools, as had been originally proposed, it was feared it would lead to confusion for motorists and a 'patchwork ' situation could develop where one part of a street was a 20 mph zone and another part was not.

20mph zones have already been imposed in residential areas in Camden, Islington and the City of London. Wellesley Road in Chiswick already has a 20 mph limit.

June 26, 2015