§ 6.53 p.m.
§ LORD CHESHAM rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is the position regarding the present 40 m.p.h. speed limit on the three-lane dual carriageways at the London end of the Kingston Bypass (trunk road A.3). The noble Lord said: My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question that stands in my name on the Order Paper, I would say that I realise that it is perhaps a little unusual to ask an Unstarred Question about so specific a subject, but I have my reasons, which I hope to explain. When I asked the same Question on June 30 last year, the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, told me that the limit would be removed after suitable bridges had been provided for pedestrians and after the necessary statutory consultations had taken place. He hoped, in fact, that it would be possible to remove this limit by the end of the year; and that, I think, will have struck most of your Lordships as being quite long enough, in all conscience.
§ Well, the end of the year in which he spoke has come and gone. Two footbridges in about a mile and a half of road have been in position for months. I must say that I have never yet seen anyone using them, but if the noble Lord in his reply tells me that it is so, then I shall be quite happy to accept from him that they are of great benefit to the pedestrian public in those parts. If they are not, then perhaps the public can use the pedestrian subway which has also been provided on this fairly modest length of road, and which has also been there for weeks. Add to all this the fact that the road has a safety fence down its centre reservation to prevent any indiscriminate crossing; it has footpaths both sides, and it has service roads for the whole of its length, which is built up. As a matter of fact, the service roads go much further than the length which is built up, thus providing an excellent repository 82 for unwanted and clapped-out motor cars. In short, it is a fine new road with dual carriage ways, each of three lanes, with all the aids to safety that I have described; and yet it has this limit of 40 miles per hour, and has had for well over a year.
§ I have always thought that it was accepted as Ministry of Transport policy, and so presumably by the Government, that speed limits should be imposed only on roads where they were seen to be reasonable and could be respected as such. I must admit that some recent Government thinking has made me doubt this. But at least until recently the thinking has been that if they were not, then they would be ignored and flouted and so help to bring speed limits and the law into disrepute. In this case, the speed limit has been continually ignored and flouted, and to anyone who uses this road regularly no amount of figures—I do not know whether the noble Lord has brought any or not—would convince him that it was otherwise.
§ The next thing I had thought was that the idea of providing such relatively short lengths of good new road was to allow the heavy traffic which uses trunk roads of this kind to get itself sorted out somewhat—in particular, to give people a reasonable chance to overtake slower moving traffic in safety, thus reducing frustration. A lot of work and a lot of public money must have been expended on creating this good road in order to give the traffic what we can call a breathing space. This purpose is completely frustrated by the limit, because it then becomes virtually illegal for anyone to overtake anyone else, since the legal limit, even for heavy commercial vehicles, is 40 m.p.h., and so everyone goes along, if they comply with the law, at the same speed anyway. Not only that, but if the purpose is frustrated in this way, then it seems a gross waste of public money to spend it on a facility of which the public are then denied the use of for so long.
§ This is an Unstarred Question and I must have all of my say now. I think that the noble Lord in his reply may tell us about the statutory processes of consultation in which his right honourable friend must engage before being able to remove or vary a speed limit, even on a trunk road for which she herself is the 83 highway authority. These processes, the noble Lord then told us, were going on at the end of June last year. Maybe he will tell us that they still are; and maybe he will even say that I personally should be very understanding of the problems of delay that they create. But I am understanding—very. So much so that I still sometimes wake up screaming in the night at the thought that it takes four years to organise a one-way system round Victoria Station; that it takes eight to twelve months to organise one round a simple London Square; but it apparently takes months and months to remove a speed limit on a modernised piece of trunk road. It is quite a way of building roads, but I must be fair and say that we are the victims of a system which we have created for ourselves over a good many years. It so happens that over the last decade, as now, the delaying influence of these consultations has become much more obvious as we try to build a road system for the country. To be fair again, I know that the noble Lord has better news for us about the matter I have raised, for he had the great courtesy to write and tell me this. I, for one, will receive it with pleasure and with relief; even so, I still think that what I have said is true and correct in principle.
§ 7.2 p.m.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF POWER (LORD LINDGREN)My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has just indicated, I wrote to him at the end of last week. He has shown intelligent anticipation as to the general nature of the reply I shall give him this evening. However, in spite of my having written to him, I am very glad of the opportunity to expand the subject a little. My right honourable friend wants to employ speed limits which are reasonable for the roads involved, bearing in mind the safety of all road users and the likelihood that not only will they be limits which the motorists will respect, but ones which the police can enforce when necessary.
When the dual carriageway was completed on the Kingston By-pass from Robin Hood Gate to Coombe Lane, it seemed reasonable, at first sight, to remove the 40 m.p.h. limit in force on that stretch. After the consultations 84 usual in these cases, to which the noble Lord referred, it was decided that removal of the speed limit should await the erection of footbridges at Gresmere Avenue and Coombe Lane. The necessary draft Order was published in August last year and brought forth some objections to the removal of the speed limit at the London end from Robin Hood Gate to just past Vale Crescent. The objectors were concerned at the problem they would face with their cars when trying to cross to the far side of the Bypass. These were objections from motorists, not from pedestrians. This involved, of course, further consultations with the local authorities and the police.
My right honourable friend has now decided to make an Order which will leave the 40 m.p.h. restriction in force from Robin Hood Gate to about 130 yards south of the southern end of Vale Crescent, and will derestrict the road from there to Coombe Lane. This derestriction will not, of course, affect the overall experimental 70 m.p.h. speed restriction on all roads. I am told that the new Order will come into effect in about fourteen days' time. Again, as the noble Lord will appreciate, after the Orders are sealed within the Ministry, they have to be distributed to police, local authorities and others concerned.
I have been brief, but I hope that what I have said will not only answer the noble Lord's Question but also set at rest the fears of those who might feel that my right honourable friend makes these Orders without full and sympathetic consideration for all concerned. In this instance, as I emphasised earlier, the retention of the speed limit is not at the request of pedestrians, but at the request of motorists themselves.