Cornwall Council’s ‘Living Streets’ initiative aiming to introduce lower speed zones and prioritise community, connectivity and quality of life in its future transport strategy was outlined this month at a public meeting of Saltash Town Council.
Councillor Philip Desmonde, Cornwall Council Portfolio Holder for Transport, said that the idea was to create 20mph zones for communities to help improve their sense of these core values of community, connectivity and quality of life, and he said the idea was “proving really popular”.
He said the aim is to reorganise things so that the street is a place where lots of multiple activities can be safely carried out, and to encourage an approach where walking, cycling and use of public transport is encouraged and use of vehicles such as private cars is reduced to just “times of need”. He added that the geography of Cornwall was such that there were always times when vehicles are needed but we need to take steps to reduce their use in towns to help free communities of congestion and pollution.
He said helping to boost health is at the core of the Living Streets philosophy. He said he had had the pleasure of looking at Fore Street in Saltash before the meeting and his overwhelming impression was of “congestion, fumes and noise”. He said he’d like to bring back a street scene where people can make use of the street as a place to mingle - “Let’s get out of our cars and walk or cycle to bring back the vitality of the street scene.”
Cllr Desmonde said the road humps in Saltash Fore Street are simply failing in their purpose, as people passing through the street in their cars are stopping and starting and creating congestion and fumes, and it’s creating problems for pedestrians to cross the street as well. He added that the humps “interfere with the general flow of people using our streets - we need to be cleverer in street design and plant trees of cut level of carbon dioxide”.
He added that it wouldn’t be every street which would have a 20mph speed limit but such zones would have clearly marked ‘gateways’ - and those communities applying to have their street made into such a zone would be able to appeal to the police if that 20mph speed limit was being infringed, so enforcement would be part of the strategy and those who break the rules would have to pay penalties.
He said that reducing speed is good for our health and wellbeing and helps to bring back into focus the real reason for the street being there - it’s there for use by people.
He added that Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez has started a policy of ‘Vision Zero’ to reduce deaths on our roads in places like the Glynn Valley, and this was using average speed cameras which take a photo of anyone who was driving dangerously.
He invited the members of Saltash Town Council to contact him if they wanted to take the Living Street concept forward in their town.
Questions came first from Cllr Sarah Martin, asking whether Cornwall Council could see to it that the relative low height of Saltash railway station’s platforms to make it easier for people with disabilities to board trains? Cllr Desmonde responded that he had just visited the town’s marvellously revamped station building and had noted that the platforms were low, but he said responsibility for those rested with train company GWR and Network Rail - he could only raise it as a matter for them to look into but he was certainly supportive of the idea.
Cllr Sarah Martin also raised the matter of ideas for a water bus or taxi service serving the town’s Waterside and whether that was being progressed, and Cllr Desmonde said he was in favour of a policy where all forms of public transport - water, bus, rail and air - were interlinked and connected with each other and also felt that transport tickets from, say, Bude to Truro, ought to apply to all forms of transport that could be used to make the journey. In short he feels that there ought to be a lot more joined-up thinking.
Cllr Martin also asked if there was any possibility of introducing a bike hire scheme in the town, and Cll Desmonde replied that she must be “a mind reader” - he had been talking about it earlier with Mayor Cllr Pete Samuels and Deputy Mayor Cllr Richard Bickford about the possibility of using the revamped station as a hub where people could go, or get off the train, and pick up a pedal bike or electric bike for a few hours to travel around the area and the return it. He added that it’s all part of the connectivity theme “and is very much in councillors’ thoughts”.
Cllr Matt Griffiths, in asking his question, agreed that the concept sounded welcome and asked whether there was anywhere where the Living Streets initiative had already been put into practice? Cllr Desmonde cited Boscawen Street in Truro, where a 20mph zone had been put in place before the summer holidays. He said there had been a certain amount of local resistance initially, but now it was in place the response had been “very positive”.
A business woman in Truro who had been quite vocal against it, because she had felt it would reduce footfall and would be bad for disabled people due to the street’s cobbles, was shown by the city mayor, who is himself disabled, that he could negotiate it okay. Since it had been introduced footfall had actually increased. It’s all about the person coming first, he said, and he was also aware of similar initiatives being introduced successfully in Holland and Portugal, and when asked if any smaller Cornish communities had adopted the approach he cited Bodmin.
Cllr Desmonde said it’s a “multi-modal process” where “gateways” are used to show you’ve entered a special zone which is for the community first and not for the car. He said this would become even more important once electric vehicles are more widely available, something he thought would lead to there being more vehicles on our roads and not fewer. He said that we had to get away from making roads bigger and bigger to accommodate more vehicles, as that just ended up being self-perpetuating. We had to base use of vehicles on need. Community should come first, not the car.
Cllr Desmonde said he Cornwall Transport Plan had gone through its first stage and the Cabinet is onboard, so now they needed to progress it further. He said we had to get drivers to realise that when they go through a town they have to show “courtesy to the vitality of that community”.