Fed up with fast cars and motorbikes making our streets and neighbourhoods noisy, polluted and dangerous? 

As a pedestrian, cyclist or local resident have you had enough of being a second-class citizen?

Start reclaiming our streets with 20’s Plenty: reduce the urban speed limit to 20 miles per hour.

Banbury Active Travel Supporters (BATS), a group keen to promote the benefits of walking and cycling and part of the Banbury Community Action Group, strongly supports 20mph speed limits for all streets where people live, work and walk in Banbury. 

20’s Plenty means:

• safer streets for walkers and cyclists: reducing serious accidents (see note 1)
• much safer for children walking, scooting and cycling to school 
• quieter streets: better for people to live and work in (see note 2)
• less air pollution: Banbury has some of the worst air quality in Oxfordshire (see note 3)
• less carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles: helping to tackle the climate emergency
• smoother traffic flow and fewer bottlenecks

We’re calling for all streets in Banbury where people live – and where they walk and cross - to have 20mph speed limits. 

We are recommending a consistent approach across our Banbury community: to reduce speed limits to 20mph. A piecemeal approach with a mixture of 30mph and 20mph across the town will be costlier to implement (a lot more signage) and confusing for motorists and other road users.  

This reduction in the speed limit is recommended by the World Health Organisation and included in the 2020 Stockholm Declaration, signed and supported by the UK and 129 other global road safety ministers. 

Already 21 million people in the UK live in local authorities that have given most urban and village roads a 20mph limit.

Oxfordshire County Council has stated a preference for the introduction of 20mph speed limits in residential areas and is asking communities to indicate their support.

Banbury Town Councillors have also indicated their cross-party support for the change.

If you would like to see 20mph replace 30mph in Banbury then please sign thIs petition now and share it with local friends and contacts!

NOTES

1. With each 1mph reduction in urban average speeds delivering a 6% reduction in casualties. 20mph limits typically deliver 20% fewer casualties when faster roads are included. (Taylor, Lynam and Baruya, 2000)

2. Noise and speed reduction. See this link.

3. 20mph is 25% cleaner than 30mph in urban settings (Source: Syrad report)