Cllr Brian Coleman of Barnet is now a member of the London Assembly representing Barnet and Camden. Here he explains how removing road humps has saved lives and won votes.
There are very few occasions when as a Local Politician you can claim to have changed National Policy. In my long and not particularly distinguished career I can claim one footnote in the annals of Local Government, a change of attitude towards traffic calming specifically the now hated “humps”.
When Barnet Council reverted to Conservative control in 2002 we implemented a manifesto commitment to begin resurfacing all our Borough roads and catching up on the long years of road maintenance neglect. At the same time we were committed to “reviewing” so called traffic calming which meant that as a road was resurfaced all humps, platforms, tables, chicanes, curb extensions, cushions and other pointless obstacles were removed and then we consulted about putting them back. To avoid any legal challenges we introduced an excellent system of a four part “electoral college “ , one vote for the Ward Councillors , one for the residents , one for the Emergency services and one ( and the casting vote if needed) for the Cabinet Member for the Environment. On this basis humps were never put back as the Emergency Services always objected to them and surprisingly residents often sick of the noise vibration and pollution agreed with Councillors that having begged for them a few years ago they now were desperate to get them out.
The Emergency services were particularly robust with the London Ambulance Service stating that 500 lives in London were lost each year due to delays in Ambulances by traffic calming and the Borough Fire Commander in Islington complaining that Islington Council’s installation of humps on A roads was a serious risk to life and limb. Dozens of Met Police cars at any one time are off the road with damage caused by humps.
As with anyone who challenges the Orthodoxy of Politically Correct opinion the combined forces of the entrenched interest groups lead by the Institute of Highways Engineers and Transport for London descended on my head with Ken Livingstone even accusing me of wanting to kill children. However attempts by TfL (or Taliban for London as they are known by many) to withhold over £1 million in grants owed to Barnet failed following robust legal advise.
When the level of deaths and serious injuries on Barnet’s roads fell by one of the largest percentages in London our critics began to shut up and by last year Ken Livingstone was admitting that road humps were of no benefit and Ken Clarke said allowing humps was the worst decision he ever took whilst a Minister in the 1980s .
The Political landscape has changed, although many of those previously wanting humps have now jumped on the 20 mph blanket zone bandwagon ( pointless , unenforceable and silly in my view) most Local Authorities have now stopped installing humps and several have followed Barnet’s lead. If further justification was needed of our policy, it is immensely popular among the “silent majority” who never normally bother communicating with Politicians. Rather like the brave Conservative Councillors of Swindon who propose to remove all speed cameras, local popularity beckons for any Politician who proposes common sense.
