ROAD, STOCKTON-ON-TEES (SPEED LIMIT) (Hansard, 27 April 1956)

§ Mr. George Chetwynd (Stockton-on-Tees)

I am very glad to have the opportunity of raising the subject of the action of the Minister of Transport in relation to a speed restriction on a part of Durham Road in my constituency of Stockton-on-Tees. I am also very glad that the Parliamentary Secretary is going to reply to the debate, because only recently we had the very great pleasure of a visit from him to perform the official ceremony at the opening of the reconstructed High Street, which is one of the most beautiful and fine high streets in the country. I know that he knows the kind of local authority with which we are dealing, and the kind of public-spirited men, with a very great interest in the promotion of road safety, who comprise this local authority.

I am therefore very sorry that a disagreement exists on the question whether the road should be restricted, as the corporation wishes, or derestricted, as the Minister wishes. There has been a long history in this matter. For about four years there has been this argument between the council and the Minister whether a 30 miles per hour speed limit should be imposed upon the stretch of Durham Road, between what is known as the "Mile House" and Junction Road—or the "Two-Mile House". The council has always wished to have a restriction and the Minister has always objected.

With the building of the new corporation estate of Roseworth, which is on the east side of the road leaving Stockton, and the consequent erection of street lighting along this stretch, the council has deemed that this road is in a built-up area and has refused to exercise its power under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, to derestrict this road, as the Minister asked it to do. The Minister, however, wishing to derestrict the road, has followed the procedure under the Act, which entailed the holding of a local inquiry before he made the necessary Order. Consequently, an inquiry was 2228 held at Stockton-on-Tees on 31st August, 1955, before one of the Minister's inspectors.

Before I come to the merits of the case, I should like to dispose of three preliminary points. First, I ought to complain about the length of time that was taken to reach a decision on what is, after all, a simple matter. The inquiry was held on the last day of August, 1955. It was not until February, 1956, that the Minister's decision was made known, and not until 21st March, 1956, was the Order made. That is taking a very long time indeed to arrive at a simple decision.

The second point about which the local authority feels strongly concerns the procedure which has been adopted. In this case, the Minister was not only the appellant—it was on his initiative that the appeal took place—but he was the witness, the jury and also the judge in his own cause. The Minister appealed against the action of the local authority, against whom the only evidence given was that of the Minister's own engineer. The inspector who conducted the inquiry was, I believe, a former officer of the Ministry. I make no complaint of that; I do not say he was biased in any way. All I say is that an inspector with that background must have his mind conditioned in a certain way. Finally, the Minister gave his own judgment in his own case. My local authority feels that that is an undesirable practice.

My third point is that the accident prevention committee of the local authority has a fine record of work. The present mayor is chairman and the committee feels strongly that the work it has done for accident prevention is being jeopardised by the Minister's action in this case.

I come now to the case for the imposition of a speed restriction on this almost one mile of straight road. The actual stretch of road, as witnesses at the inquiry testified, is virtually a race track, and at nine o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the evening it is particularly congested and dangerous. In fact, this stretch of road is referred to in the local Press and by local inhabitants as the "mad mile". Anyone who goes on the road at certain times really uses it at his peril. That is the state of the road which is the subject of the Order.

2229 On the part of the road nearer to the town, on which a 30 miles per hour speed limit already exists, a heavy toll of accidents is recorded. I have a letter from a resident on the part of the road on which there is the restriction, who states: One of the dangers is that the very fast traffic does not slow down sufficiently as it approaches the town. I should say that roughtly one-half of the vehicles which pass my house exceed 30 miles per hour, that a very substantial proportion are travelling at 40 miles per hour, and there is the not infrequent 'road hog' who is travelling at 50 or 60 miles per hour. This correspondent goes on to say that the road is a danger to children and other residents.

One of the main reasons for imposing the speed restriction some way from the town is to ensure that the traffic should be slowed down by the time it reaches this exceptionally dangerous stretch of the road from the Mile House to the town. There is considerable danger on that stretch of the road, as was witnessed at an inquiry, to pedestrians and especially to children. As I have said, there is a new estate there on the right hand side. Figures have been given to me by the Church of England clergyman in whose parish it lies, and he says that there are 5,000 children on the estate, most of whom are under the age of 10, and they present a particularly intractable problem on the road.

At the present time, there is officially access to Durham Road at Junction Road, at the top of Redhill Road in the centre, and at the Mile House nearer the town. Each one of those entries is dangerous in view of the amount of traffic on the road, the through traffic going towards Durham and the North, and the local traffic turning into the estate. Originally, there was a hedgerow and a footpath between the road and the houses, but I saw for myself only last weekend that there are already at least forty large gaps in the hedge, gaps made by the residents on the estate, and they use those gaps as unauthorised entries to the road. I lost count of the number of gaps when I had counted forty, but through those gaps the people go to the road all the time, and it is virtually impossible to put a stop to the practice.

At the main entries at Redhill Road and Junction Road and Mile House the 2230 position is further complicated by the fact that there are bus stops nearby. Although there is an internal route on the estate, a route which is supposed to draw people off the main road, nevertheless the residents on the estate use those bus stops on their way to and from their work and the shops. There are many cyclists on the estate who go by way of Redhill Road to Durham Road, where the amount of traffic makes cycling into or from the estate a dangerous venture. Evidence was given at the inquiry by a man who said that on coming home at night, if he had to miss the main road to get home, he always dismounted from his cycle and walked across Durham Road because it was too dangerous to try to ride across the road amid the traffic.

I do not want to go into the figures of the accident record because I think the figures can prove very little. There has not been a very heavy accident rate on the road up to date. There was recently, and since the inquiry, a fatal accident to a child. I mention that not as an argument in favour of a speed limit because I do not think the speed limit would have affected the accident. Speed had nothing to do with the accident. I mention it to show that children are exposed to danger on the road, and my contention and the contention of the local authority is that the faster the traffic on the road the more danger there is to the children and other pedestrians who use it.

There is a clear connection between speed and accidents in built-up areas. I think we all agree that in built-up areas it is desirable to have a speed limit because it obviously is preventive of accidents. This place in reality is a built-up area, although I think that the case of the Minister's representative at the inquiry was that it was not a built-up area. Houses now have been built right up to the main road on the right-hand side. That was not in the original plan, under which the building was to have been kept at some distance from the road, but since then, owing to Government economy and other causes, the local authority has gone in for what is called "in-filling," and has filled in spaces with houses, many of them old-age pensioners' houses, right up to the main road itself. Therefore, there is now much coming and 2231 going from the estate on to this main road.

I believe that where the local authority, the local accident prevention committee and the residents themselves wish to have a speed limit, the onus is on the Minister to show that the speed on this road is not dangerous, and not the other way round. I am quite convinced from reading the evidence of the inquiry that the Ministry's representative did not prove that the speed on this road was not dangerous to life and limb of my constituents.

The case against the restrictions put by the Ministry's senior engineer for the North-Eastern Region was, first, that this proposal would bring into disrepute the general application of speed restrictions in other parts. I cannot think that that is a valid objection in this case. Even if it were, there is a remedy if motorists disobey traffic signals at places further down the road. Therefore, I cannot think that the Minister is right in believing that by imposing a speed restriction on this piece of road it would make it impossible for speed restrictions to be obeyed elsewhere.

The second reason put forward by the Ministry's representative was that the local authority should seal off the estate from the main road. That is practically impossible. There are already the forty points of access which I counted and to which I have referred, and one cannot expect to shut off between 7,000 and 8,000 on an estate and deny them access to Durham Road itself.

The other point put forward at the inquiry was that only one side of the road was built up and that there were only some four or five houses on the other side. That situation, of course, is changing day by day. Work has now commenced on the left hand side of the road leaving Stockton, on what is known as the Hardwick Estate, which is to house 10,000 people. Building workers and contractors' lorries are in and out of the site and using the main road all the time, thereby increasing the danger from traffic.

These two estates, one on one side of the road and one on the other, are planned to be interdependent with regard to schools, churches, a health centre and a library, and there will necessarily be 2232 traffic crossing from one estate to the other in order to use these facilities and amenities. Therefore, the case is, briefly, that the local authority wish to have a speed limit. It regards the Minister's action as an interference with its judgment, and it is extremely upset and angered by the decision of the Minister on what it considers to be a local problem which it understands better than the Minister himself.

The present position is a threat to the lives of the people in the town, and particularly to the lives of the residents on the estate, including many children. The decision not to have a speed limit has raised very strong feelings, and I should like to quote one sentence from the Roseworth Clarion which is a newspaper published by the Church of England on the estate. The editor, who is the minister, says: The Minister of Transport's decision is deplorable and comes as a shock and a disappointment to the people of Roseworth who cannot believe that the saving of a motorist's minute is more important than the lives of their children. High speed motoring will now continue with official approval. I believe that the decision was made against the weight of the evidence and that it would be better for the Minister to err on the side of caution if there is any doubt whatsoever. It would be better for a motorist to take one minute longer in getting to and from Stockton than to take any unnecessary risk with human life.

I appeal to the Minister not to be rigid in this matter and to judge each individual case on its merits. I am convinced that anyone who lives in the neighbourhood or travels along the road must be convinced of the overwhelming case for the imposition of a speed limit. If the Minister does refuse what I ask, I hope I shall never be in the position of having to say, "I told him so" when something pretty dreadful happens later on.

I make this final appeal to the Minister. The local authority earnestly wishes to be wise before the event and not after. I hope the Minister will have some encouraging news to give me.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson)

I well recall my agreeable visit to Stockton-on-Tees only a short time ago and the pleasure with which I was able to open 2233 a High Street which had been widened and improved as a result of an enterprise in which the Ministry of Transport and the local authority had co-operated most amicably and for their common advantage. I am, therefore, all the more sorry that on the first occasion when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) raises a matter on behalf of his local authority, it is to complain of a decision taken by my Department. I am sorry that the authority should be angry and disappointed, but I hope that after hearing what I say on the subject it will agree that on the facts this was a right decision.

I cannot accept the view that in a matter of speed limits the local authorities are necessarily the best judges. The whole purpose of Parliament in legislating for speed limits was to ensure as far as possible that there should be approximately the same standards for speed restriction throughout the country. It is forcibly impressed upon me by my correspondence that almost all local authorities wish to have a speed limit in their own particular area; but it is one of the responsibilities of the Minister of Transport to try to ensure, first, that traffic is kept moving and, secondly, that broadly the same criteria are applied throughout the country.

Under the Road Traffic Act of 1934 it was provided that there should normally be a 30 miles per hour limit in built-up areas. At that time it appeared that the simplest way of defining a built-up area was by reference to the presence of street lighting; but even then power was given to the Minister to derestrict in cases where it did not appear that an area was in fact a built-up area properly so called.

Since 1934, the character of street lighting has very considerably changed. Then, it was almost entirely intended for the benefit of pedestrians and their safety at night, and it is only since then that there has been introduced on a large scale a more modern kind of lighting in order to help motorists. Therefore, it is no longer as good a criterion as it was 22 years ago to say that where there is lighting there is a prima facie case for a restriction on speed. Indeed, it is often the case that there is less need for a restriction on speed where there is lighting than where there is not. Under the Road Traffic Bill which is now 2234 before the House, we are proposing to Parliament to bring to an end the automatic restriction of roads that are lighted except in the case of unclassified roads.

The Road Safety Committee has made several reports about speed limits. The Committee is of the opinion that it is not only unnecessary but positively undesirable to impose speed limits except where they are really needed. That is also the view of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, which has been going into this matter lately.

Some research has been done by the Road Research Laboratory which shows that there is practically no change in the speed of traffic on roads where a speed limit which has not appeared to be necessary has been imposed. Whether there has been a speed limit or not, about 50 per cent. of the vehicles travelled at more than 30 miles an hour. With about 6 million vehicles in this country a speed limit is effective only where, on the whole, the motorist feels that there is justification for it. In this case, the Minister ordered a public inquiry under the Act of 1934. I am sorry if the hon. Member feels that the matter was not fairly tried. I agree that the inspector was an ex-official of the Ministry of Transport, but I assure him that he was not in any way influenced by that fact except that he had knowledge of the subject.

The road to which the hon. Member has referred has an overall width of 50 ft. with a 30 ft. carriageway. There is a 10 ft. grass verge on the west side of the road and a 6 ft. footpath on the east side. There is a gently falling gradient south-eastwards towards the town. The visibility both vertical and horizontal is good and vehicular traffic is estimated at about 4,000 vehicles daily, about half of which are heavy vehicles subject already to a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or less. There is at present little pedestrian traffic.

The hon. Member referred to accidents which have taken place in the stretch fronting Roseworth Estate. In the period of three years and four months to date there have been two fatalities. One was caused when a child ran into the road in front of a motor van, which was already subject to a speed limit. The other was due to a passenger on a lorry jumping from the rear of the lorry and 2235 falling into the road. I am sorry if the Road Safety Committee of Stockton feels that in taking the line we are taking we are in any way jeopardising the work it is doing. We value that work very much indeed, but we do not believe we are jeopardising it in any way.

I was sorry to hear the hon. Member refer to forty or more gaps he found in the quickthorn hedge between Roseworth Estate and the road. It is of the utmost importance that the general planning principle shall be enforced, that where an estate of that kind is built on a Class I road access to the road shall be limited. The planning was entirely correct. Access was given only at one point. If pedestrians break through the hedge which has been planted and obtain access to the road in that way I can only suggest that something more should be done to stop them.

I am aware that large development of the Hardwick Estate, on the other side of the road, is planned. When announcing the decision of my right hon. Friend, we wrote to the local authority and begged it to be extremely careful—when that development took place; I know it has begun—about accesses to the main road. It really is impossible for us as a general principle to impose speed restrictions on good, wide roads intended for fast travelling traffic merely because local authorities do not carry out sound principles of planning and restrict access from houses to those roads.

This case has been investigated. Our decision is in accordance with the general principles laid down by Parliament and 2236 applied by the Ministry of Transport for a long time. It is in accordance with what we are advised are sound principles of road safety as advocated by the reports of the Road Safety Committee and the Road Research Laboratory.

I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will feel that as this road is at present, there is no justification for imposing a 30 miles per hour speed limit on it. I hope he will exercise his influence—I am sure that it is great—with the local authority to ensure that as further development on the west side of the road takes place, there is a proper restriction of access to this busy road, and that a service road is constructed. Then, I believe, it will not be necessary for him to come to the Ministry and say that there has been any increase in accidents as a result of the derestriction.