Now is Not the Time for Complacency on Road Safety

Written by Nick Slope and published in letter published in the Bucks Free Press 23rd November 2007 on Sat 24th Nov 2007

Dear Editor

Now is not the time for complacency when it comes to road safety in our villages (Councillor Colston letters page 16/11). Of course we welcome the long overdue construction of pedestrian crossings locally, but by any standards Councils and other agencies have a long way to go before delivering "a complete safety strategy for our local roads." I was brought up in Great Missenden and have lived here most of my life. Measures such as the Station Approach crossing should have been implemented by Bucks County Council many many years ago. That is reflected in the feedback we get locally. Concerns about traffic and speeding also dominated the survey carried out for the Misbourne Neighbourhood Action Group earlier this year.

Buckinghamshire County Council has been extremely slow to adopt even basic village safety measures such as entry features, coloured roundels, vehicle activated signs and other effective driver prompts. These are all straightforward, relatively inexpensive and effective rural village measures identified by the Government's road safety strategy published as long ago as the year 2000. More importantly, evidence from other counties suggests they work in helping to educate drivers about changing speed limits and in reducing excessive speeding through rural communities. At a time when Bucks CC's overall budget for expenditure on transport has actually been increasing, it is surprising that so little if anything has been spent on these effective measures locally. It is also surprising that Council support for modest community led measures such as Speed Indicator Devices (SIDs) has actually been cut this year.

Liberal Democrats believe that delivering a "safety strategy for our local roads" should be an absolute priority. That's why we will continue to campaign locally for the urgent implementation of all the road safety measures proposed three years ago by the Council's independent consultants. Improving village road safety requires far more than the piecemeal and snails pace delivery of selected recommendations of the A4128 route strategy, no matter how important they may be in isolation.

Yours Sincerely

Nick Slope

Great Missenden, Prestwood and Heath End Liberal Democrats