Argyle Road, Hampton Road and Derby Road in Newbury to go to 20mph

Only one objection was received by West Berkshire Council about the proposed 20 mile per hour speed limit plan for Argyle Road, Hampton Road and Derby Road in Newbury.

So it is going ahead.

The project is funded from the existing council budget associated with speed limit changes and is anticipated to cost approximately £2,000 to pay for road signs.

There is an ongoing financial cost in respect of the maintenance of speed limit signing, in that 30mph limits do not generally require “repeater” signs, but 20mph limits do.

The council says traffic signs have a long life and will not need wholesale replacement for many years, but in order for a speed limit to be legally enforceable all signs within the limit need to be present and correct.

The number of additional signs for this proposal is very small (approximately 20).

Previous work done on 20mph speed limits, especially in relation to the recent pilot scheme to introduce a new 20mph covering most of Theale village, determined that is it not cost effective or manageable to implement such limits on a street-by-street basis in response to individual requests from the community.

However, this proposal arose from a request that was received before the new approach to 20mph speed limits was in place and a decision had already been taken to proceed.

In the future, it is unlikely that new 20mph limits will contain such a small number of streets as this one, as the council moves to an area-wide approach.