"It is not the whole truth"

A letter from a local resident about Ilkley's 20mph zone ✉️

You have printed the Ilkley Town Council version of events leading up to the attempted creation of a 20mph zone covering almost the whole of Ilkley. It is not the whole truth. You only have the version told by those Ilkley Town councillors who voted for it.

Most of the motions were only passed by the then town mayor, Karl Milner, using his extra vote. Otherwise the councillors were equally divided by this subject – and still are!

The Ilkley Neighbourhood Plan, which I signed, stated 20mph zones in the plural. This was afterwards wrongly converted into one zone in the singular and yet the neighbourhood plan was constantly quoted as permission from the electorate – which it clearly wasn’t! I have the Ilkley Neighbourhood Plan.

Ilkley had a very low incidence rate for road accidents. There were many more areas of the Bradford District that had much higher accident rates. Ilkley was moved up this list because Ilkley Town Council offered to pay up to a certain amount towards the cost.

This resulted in other areas of the district being deprived of road safety measure where they were needed. Even countrywide, Ilkley is lower than the halfway point for the number of accidents in each area.

Most of the road accidents in the five years of records submitted at the open day did not involve speed.

Three of them were caused by people being taken ill while driving. Most of these accidents were in the centre of Ilkley. Some involved pedestrians stepping out too early when a car was passing.

One involved a van reversing in a car parking space (in order to set off) when a lady was crossing the road behind it. And one was caused by a cyclist travelling at speed down a long hill and not noticing that the car in front was signalling to turn left.

I have the full list of accidents as it was presented at the open day and the map showing where these accidents took place – mostly in the centre of Ilkley.

Ten people on the electoral roll for the voting wards in Ilkley asked for a town meeting to be called to discuss the 20mph zone and associated humps.

Five hundred electors attended the meeting, but those councillors pushing forward this plan boycotted the meeting, perhaps because they could not justify what they were doing. At the meeting, those attending called for a town-wide vote and six questions were decided on.

Of those voting over 90% voted against a 20mph zone and associated humps but also about the same percentage were happy to have certain areas restricted to 20mph with speed bumps or cushions.

This result was completely ignored by those on the Ilkley Town Council pushing for the single zone – so much for democracy and voting!

However some humps were taken out of the scheme (one, in the centre where most accidents occur was taken out because it would obstruct cyclists in the Ilkley Road Cycle Race) and some roads were missed off the original paperwork and had to be publicised later on.

For some reason not all the humps have been put in place and, until they are, the 20mph zone is incomplete. The fact that it is incomplete means that it is not a zone and therefore the speed limit cannot be enforced.

A huge waste of Bradford Council money at a time when they are facing bankruptcy. There are many more interesting points in this ongoing saga but all lead to this same conclusion.