20mph area speed limit for Upper Beeding, West Sussex?

[squeaker]

Anyone in the Steyning area this evening might like to drop in to the Chanctonbury Local Committee meeting at the Steyning Centre where a proposal to implement an area 20mph speed limit in Upper Beeding is up for approval. (Item 9, target time 7:55pm.)

[MikeF]

http://www2.westsussex.gov.uk/ds/clc/cby/cby210617i9.pdf
"West Sussex County Council collected speed data in June 2015 throughout Upper Beeding and speeds were in excess of 20mph. To introduce a 20mph speed limit, average speeds must be or lower than 24mph. The following are average speeds recorded:

High Street: 23mph
High Street (by Petrol Station): 22.1mph
Manor Road: 22mph
Church Lane: 18mph
Pound Lane: 24.3mph*
Truleigh Road: 17.4mph
*Pound Lane is over the policy but with engineering measures introduces with the scheme, this should reduce the speeds below the threshold."

I don't understand. So if average speeds are higher than 24mph 20mph speed limits can't be implemented?

[squeaker]

I don't understand. So if average speeds are higher than 24mph 20mph speed limits can't be implemented?

Paras 94 and 95 of Department for Transport Circular 01/2013
Bonkers, innit
The 20 limit is still going ahead though And the Highways bloke at the CLC was verbally beaten up by our local county councillor who wants the A2037 to be 30mph limited from the A283 all the way through Upper Beeding (parts of it are 40, leading to the badly signed 30 section to be widely ignored).

[MikeF]

I don't understand. So if average speeds are higher than 24mph 20mph speed limits can't be implemented?

Paras 94 and 95 of Department for Transport Circular 01/2013
Bonkers, innit
The 20 limit is still going ahead though And the Highways bloke at the CLC was verbally beaten up by our local county councillor who wants the A2037 to be 30mph limited from the A283 all the way through Upper Beeding (parts of it are 40, leading to the badly signed 30 section to be widely ignored).

Yes completely bonkers. If motor traffic can't physically go much more than 20mph there's no point in a 20mph speed limit. That document states all the advantages of lower speed limits and then states why they can't be implemented - mainly because motorists will ignore them.

[Pete Owens]

The current guidelines most certainly do not say that you cannot implement 20mph speed limits on roads where traffic is currently travelling faster than 24mph. So whoever wrote the council document was telling porkies (a common strategy used by officials to close down democratic debate when they don't want to do something). Older guidelines did indeed require all speed limits to be self enforcing - but this was changed in the 2013 guidelines specifically to enable councils to implement appropriate speed limits.

Read those paragraphs and you will see a discussion , not a prohibition. Indeed the start of section 94 explicitly explains the reduced requirement for traffic calming:

These new arrangements should significantly reduce the requirement for signing and traffic calming features. Traffic authorities can now
incorporate wider areas within a 20 mph zone, by effectively signing 20mph speed limits on distributor roads where traffic calming features are
not suitable...

Note the word "can" rather than "must not"

Of course, since it used to be a requirement that vehicles were already complying with a speed limit before that limit was applied, then it is obvious that research into the those limits will show that they typically had little effect. However, trials in Portsmouth and Warrington did show (again obviously) that greater speed reductions are achieved where 20mph speed limits are imposed on roads with higher speeds.This is mentioned in para 96.

[John Holiday]

You could try and get your local Community Speed Watch group to do some sessions in the area.
In North Wales our group is very active in the Mold /Buckley area & are beginning to see some benefits.