Alarm at Tory Transport Policy

12.00.00am GMT Sat 20th Sep 2003

Councillor Martin Elengorn, Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman for Transport

Tucked away in the Council's Performance Planning Report which went to the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 4th September is a warning from Council officers that Tory policies might compromise safety and lead to loss of grant.

The whole document can be found on http://cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/Published/C00000226/M00000989/AI00005072/$Env040903item15AppxA.doc.pdf

and the warning is in Section 5 para 5.2 and reads "…it has become apparent that the service must as a matter of urgency develop an outline Richmond Transport Strategy. This should identify what the service is trying to achieve and in outline how this will be done. It will also reflect the implications of the strategy e.g. potential safety implications of tackling congestion, the funding implications of adopting policies which do not reflect the Mayor's priorities and the subsequent implications for the road/footpath maintenance programme."

Councillor Martin Elengorn, Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman for Transport said, "This serious warning from Council officers confirms what we have been saying for some time. The Tory obsession for giving greater priority to private car drivers at the expense of other road users by reducing the length of pedestrian phases, taking out traffic signals, banning new raised features on our roads, taking out bus lanes or sharing them with HGVs and downgrading cycle facilities is not only retrograde and misconceived but could be positively hazardous as vehicle speeds increase and pedestrians are given less protection."

"This is not scare-mongering as it is the Council's own officers who are alerting us. There is also the very worrying point that the Mayor is quite reasonably not going to provide funds for schemes at odds with his strategies."

"I think the Tories are increasingly revealing their deeply backward-looking approach to road transport policies. Our great success in the borough at reducing injuries and deaths on our roads and encouraging environmentally responsible modes of transport are under real threat and we and the residents have to fight against this, scheme by scheme."