Plans to speed up introduction of 20mph speed limits prompting complaints about lack of enforcement of existing restrictions

Barnet Council is preparing a new procedure to allow residents to apply for a 20mph speed limit on side roads where they think driving is too fast and poses a danger to pedestrians and a risk of traffic accidents.

Stapylton Road – see above – and Salisbury Road are two residential streets close to High Barnet town centre which are thought to be at the top of the list for a reduction in the limit from 30mph to 20mph following speed surveys conducted last year.

A draft policy to allow residents to apply for lower speed limits has been agreed at a council cabinet meeting and is about to go out for public consultation.

While the council’s recognition of the need for more speed limits has been welcomed, residents in some roads where there is already a 20mph limit or traffic calming measures complain bitterly about a lack of enforcement.

Householders in Mays Lane, which is covered by a 20mph limit from the bottom of Barnet Hill and on through Underhill, complain regularly on social media about how many drivers take no notice.

They say that before the council agrees to any further 20mph zones it should install more repeater signs; more illuminated warnings of excessive speed; and investigate the possibility of installing speed cameras.   

Once the new procedure for 20mph zones is in place, residents will be able to make an application via the council’s website as is already the case when people report potholes, damaged pavements or abandoned vehicles.

East Barnet councillor Simon Radford – cabinet member for finance – said the new process would finally give Barnet residents the ability to ask — and outline the case — for a 20mph zone in the roads where they live.

He had been working with residents to reduce speeding in East Barnet, and he hoped their concerns could now be addressed with an assessment by council staff as to where there should be signs and road markings or perhaps additional traffic calming measures such as a road narrowing or speed hump.

Speed humps have recently been installed on Mays Lane (at the junction with Manor Road) where for many years previously there had been a metal barrier enforcing a width restriction.

Removal of the width restriction has angered some householders who say large vans and small lorries — which had previously been prevented from using that section of Mays Lane – are again travelling too fast and posing a danger to pedestrians, especially to customers using the Mays Lane parade of shops.

There are two sets of illuminated speed warning signs along Mays Lane but for much of its length there are few if any reminders of the 20mph limit – except for the freshly-painted signs on the road outside Underhill School and Children’s Centre.

Queens Road – leading to Queen Elizabeth’s Boys’ School and the Queen’s Road Estate – is another road where residents complain about the lack of enforcement of a 20mph speed limit.

There is only one reminder sign halfway along the road and a 20mph sign painted on the road which is so worn down it is barely visible.

Salisbury Road and Stapylton Road are likely to be prioritised by the council for a 20mph zone because of long-standing concern about speeding.

Stapylton Road by-passes Barnet High Street and is a heavily used link between the roundabout at the Black Horse public house and St Albans Road.

When parking spaces are full, the curve on the carriageway makes it difficult to see fast approaching vehicles on what is a popular cut through.

The lower section of Salisbury Road – from Stapylton Road to High Street – is largely one way but busier than the upper section because it is on the route for five bus services – 234 (Spires-Archway); 326 (Spires-Brent Cross); 383 (Finchley Memorial Hospital); 384 (Edgware-Cockfosters); and 399 (Hadley Wood).

Lowering the existing 30mph limit on Salisbury and Stapylton Roads would extend the 20mph limit which already applies in Alston Road (from the junction with Marriott Road to Salisbury Road) and the 20mph limits on Wentworth Road and Byng Road which serve Foulds and Christ Church primary schools and the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice.