Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Not all cyclists support Sunak’s war on traffic control

Credit: Getty images

My fiancée wants to put a sign up outside our house demanding that the speed limit be reduced to 20mph. I’d rather she didn’t. Drivers have enough to cope with already.

Such is the peer pressure emanating from the neighbours, however, in collaboration with my fiancée, that the decision is likely to be taken out of my hands. Shortly, I fear, I’ll be master of a house with ’20 is plenty’ sign on the gate, accompanied by a picture of a snail.

Just because sticking up for motorists worked in Uxbridge doesn’t mean it will work across the country

I offer this vignette because the government is reportedly mulling a crackdown on councils that seek to impose 20mph speed limits, ‘bus gates’ – bus-only shortcuts – and ‘low-traffic neighbourhoods’ (LTNs). It comes in the wake of the Uxbridge by-election, which was turned into a referendum on Ulez, and in which the voters returned the Tories because they were perceived to be pro-motorist.

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