Residents celebrate agreement of 20mph speed restriction for Athelstan Road

CAMPAIGN: Nikki Humber [ARTRA Member], Cllr. Alan Currie, Justin Shorten [ARTRA Member], Kais Swesey [ARTRA Member], Luke McKlean [ARTRA Founder], Matt Shoul [ARTRA Chairperson]. Photo Credit: Cllr. Harry Scobie

A 20mph speed limit is expected to be put in place on a Cliftonville road after campaigning by the residents association.

The restriction has been agreed in principle for Athelstan Road after a campaign from Athelstan Road Tenants & Residents’ Association (ARTRA) and sponsorship from county councillor Barry Lewis.

The road will be a test case in Thanet following a review by Kent County Council of the implementation of 20mph areas.

ARTRA chairman Matt Shoul said the call for the speed restriction follows two incidents of children under 10 being hit by cars and both requiring hospital treatment for shoulder and hip injuries respectively.

Mr Shoul added: “Cllr Barry Lewis, together with ARTRA officers, founders and members, has achieved in barely a few weeks, what was thought to become a highly lengthy and protracted campaign. KCC appears to have agreed to a 20mph speed limit on our Thanet test case: Athelstan Road!

“Hopefully, this apparent victory will open the floodgates for a very much wider 20mph limit across many parts of Margate and possibly Thanet in general – almost certainly saving our children and wider community from injury and death.”

KCC has agreed to pay for monitoring existing speeds on Athelstan Road and comparison speeds after signage and  road markings have been installed.

In the past, 20mph zones followed Department for Transport guidance which said they could be introduced, for example, as a casualty reduction measure or to improve public health.

To date, Kent has more than 1,000 roads with a 20mph zone or limit. In the past two years, 22 schemes covering 286 roads have been put in place.

The county council has now moved to a case by case approach for introducing schemes which have strong community support and a sponsor, such as a county councillor/parish or town council/ or a member of the local Joint Transportation Board.

To test success, KCC is to run a series of research pilots to determine effectiveness.

Cllr Lewis said: “If we protect children from speeding traffic around schools then we should also protect them at their homes. Under the new guidelines any group or parish council can apply to turn a road into a 20mph area. ARTRA has done this with my backing.”

3 Comments

  1. We have a problem with speeding down Arthur Rd, a one way street, towards Dalby Square where lots of young children congregate in the park and childrens play area. There is no pavement around much of the park making it more dangerous when vehicles are speeding through this rat-run to the seafront’s Ethelbert Crescent.
    I have been campaigning for years to get KCC to introduce a 20 MPH limit and road-calming measure put in, maybe Cllr Barry Lewis could help with this but I have asked him before.

  2. If you can start a petition in your road that supports a 20 mile limit, I will try my best.,the reason I could not help before is that only last month the policy was altered so it is now possible to go ahead. I previously did not want to make promises I could not keep. Please recontact me.

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