AQW 8381/17-22

Mr Andrew Muir
Alliance Party
North Down

Tabled Date: 07/10/2020
Answered On Date: 19/10/2020
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for Infrastructure whether she will include a roll out of further 20mph school speed restriction zones, including North Down schools, within budgets for the next financial year 2021/22.

Answer:

As Minister responsible for promoting and improving road safety, I want to work actively with partners to reduce death and serious injuries on our roads. I believe that reducing the maximum speed traffic can travel at on some of our roads, particularly those near schools, can help in this regard.

I am therefore delighted to have committed funding in this year’s capital budget towards introduction of part-time 20 mph speed limits at around 100 schools. These measures will increase driver awareness and achieve reductions in vehicle speeds outside and near these schools ensuring that parents, children and staff will be safer as they go to and from the schools on a daily basis.

Given the restricted budgets for works of this nature, as well as the practicalities of delivery, it was necessary to limit the number of schools to 100 in this year’s programme. Unfortunately based on the assessment scores none of the schools in the North Down area were ranked as highly as the other schools included within this year’s programme. However, I do intend to take forward a further tranche of part-time speed limits at schools and the schools in North Down will be considered for inclusion in future programmes the extent and scale of which will be dependent on the funding available to me.