IN THESE times of austerity, I was disturbed to receive a leaflet from Bury Council advising that it intends to squander a significant chunk of our council taxes installing a 20 mph limit in Elms Bank and Sunnybank. 

The majority of roads affected are narrow and tortuous to negotiate, with many parked cars even during the day. 

The council’s own website reveals that where average speeds are already below 24 mph, it will only install signs as “the 20 mph speed limit is self-enforcing in these areas because the width or layout of streets does not allow motorists to go any faster”.

Why fritter away scarce funds on road signs for a limit that is self-enforcing? 

This over-abundance of histrionic signage does not educate or encourage drivers, at least not in the way the council intends.

It is like the boy who cried wolf, spraying warnings around when there is nothing to warn of – it only teaches us that the warnings are empty, it teaches us to distrust and ignore them, and it teaches us not to believe them.

I support improving safety for the vulnerable by reducing speeds where they are excessive, but I don’t support wasting money enforcing a limit that people already comply with. 

If the council are serious about improving road safety, perhaps they might address some of their scarce funds to the plethora of potholes that abound in the borough and pose a risk to all road users, particularly cyclists and motor cyclists; perhaps they might turn up the wick on the new LED street-lighting which ought to be as bright as the old sodium lighting but is patchy and uneven. 

That is if they are serious about road safety, and not just serious about ill thought out knee-jerk policies.

Mick Curtis
Sunnybank