IN 2000 North Lanarkshire Council introduced advisory 20mph speed limits in every residential area under the Twenty's Plenty initiative. Based solely on careful attention to signing and lining, it cost less than £500,000.

The benefits were incredible – although the effect on vehicle speeds was relatively small, there was a 25 per cent reduction in the number of injury accidents over the whole council area in the first year after the introduction of the scheme compared with the previous year. I wanted to make the speed limits mandatory but I could not persuade the then Strathclyde Police to agree unless we were also to introduce physical traffic calming measures so that the scheme was “self-enforcing".

However the cost of these not to mention the effect on access by emergency vehicles and bus operations was well beyond what we were prepared to accept.

Ian Lawson,

22 Buchanan Street, Milngavie.