[London Road]
Recent announcements for 20 mph speed limits around Newbridge School, Royal High and Kingswood schools mean that by April 2027, all of Bath north of the River Avon will be 20 mph.
Now, campaigners have launched a petition urging the council to go further and deliver safe speeds around every school, home and business, and in the process secure the crown of becoming England’s first fully 20mph City.
Spokesperson for the Bath 20mph City campaign, Guy Hodgson, said “concerns about safety seriously limit transport choice. Humans can and do make mistakes on the roads, which lead to collisions, but lower speeds reduce the likelihood of death and serious injury. With half the city now moving to 20 mph, it is time for all Bathonians, especially our children, to enjoy the benefits of safe speeds. Hundreds of people have already signed our petition, and we urge others to add their voices.”
Concerns around dangerous speeds fill councillors’ inboxes on a daily basis. A particular worry is how it impacts on children, and their ability to safely navigate the places they live in, where even walking to school can mean interacting with high-speed routes. Drivers also report finding it difficult to track limits that can ‘yo-yo’ in the space of a few hundred meters.
Other English cities such as Bristol, Portsmouth and Oxford are in the running to deliver universal 20mph, but Bath is uniquely placed to be the first, as fellow campaigner and transport academic Pete Dyson explains: “Bath has been fortunate to maintain a largely traditional street design and there is just one mile of dual carriageway. We have already seen 20mph works well for people on places like London Road, which is now safer, less polluted and easier to cross. We need to roll out those benefits to all communities.”
As of April 2027, Bath’s remaining 30mph roads will constitute only 8.5 miles of a 159-mile network, all in BA2 and many outside schools such as St Martin’s and Ralph Allen.
The Bath 20mph City campaign and petition seek to banish these by the end of 2027, with an estimated cost of just £15,000. Guy Hodgson continues: “This represents excellent value for money. 30mph where people live, work, and play is akin to indoor smoking. When it is no more, we will look back and wonder how we tolerated such a harmful situation for so long”.
The campaign website can be found at bath20mphcity.org, and the petition here or by scanning the QR code. It is part of the national campaign 20s Plenty.
Bath, a city of 95,000 people (the 75th-largest conurbation in England), was an early adopter of 20mph, with the first scheme introduced in 2000. The progress since then has been a joint endeavour across the whole political spectrum and delivered by a generation of council officers.
MEANWHILE, Julie Ingerfield writes:
“I saw your post today regarding Bath as a 20mph city. I thought you and your followers may wish to know that the Bloomfield Bath Residents’ Association (BBRA) will be hosting a “conversation” entitled “Bath: England’s First 20MPH City?”
The evening will feature Guy Hodgson, former Chair of WalkRide Bath and current representative for the 20 is Plenty campaign in Bath, who will be countered by Mark Shelford, former Ward Councillor in our area and past Police & Crime Commissioner.
The event will be held at St. Luke’s Church on the Wellsway on the evening of 8 October (time tba). This will be a free event, but booking through our website (bloomfieldbathresidents.org) or through Eventbrite is required.
Booking will open in September. We are currently polling our members on this subject. Early days but 50% are in favour of a universal 20mph limit in Bath, 43% against, with the remainder requiring additional information.”
We urgently need speed control on Gloucester Road past Innox Lane, nobody takes notice of the new 30MPH limit and with children crossing the road from the school down Innox Lane to walk or cycle down Gloucester Road it seems to be a dangerous situation . Some form of speed control other than a limit would be beneficial
I remember when the Council first introduced 20mph limits (thanks to then Transport lead Roger Symonds), there was uproar. Literally. One of my neighbours roared past me at the bottom of Lansdown Lane in Weston in his “high powered” Audi. (It’s always Audi drivers) 🙄
Travelling on my bike at 8-10mph, uphill, I arrived home maybe 20 seconds later as he was getting out of his car.. and walking (slowly) to his door (he was an unfit, a smoker and not very able). (ie he didn’t jump out and sprint!)..
The same could be said of red traffic lights, and queuing traffic – so many drivers speed up to the back of the next queue..
The average speed is a combination of course of moving speed and the time you are sitting stationary .. the hare and the tortoise come to mind..
Very much in favour of such a blanket coverage – and I say that as a driver, cyclist and walker.
Across such a small city as Bath the extra time of travel is neither here nor there.
I believe Bath is around 4 miles wide East to West from, say London Roundabout to Newbridge.
If you could maintain 30mph that would take 8 minutes. Limited to 20mph – 12 minutes.
4 minutes longer at best from one side to the other. In reality both these max speeds will often be subject to constraints of congestion, traffic lights etc so that both trips would be much longer but the differential of 4 minutes could never be exceeded
But please let me know if my maths and logic are wrong!