Rothwell Primary school gets new 20mph zone

It’s fantastic that we’re getting another 20mph zone in Rothwell. The latest one is around the Carlton Lane area and includes all the streets from Carlton Lane and Butcher Lane. This includes Stone Brig Lane which all too often is used as a rat run by some inconsiderate people.

Road safety is one of the top issues that people contact me and David about and the roads around Rothwell Primary are no exception. Local residents, parents and grandparents consistently raise the issue of safety for children with a combination of speeding cars and inconsiderately parked cars being two of the biggest complaints.

Speeding and parking are also two of the top topics people raise with us when we’re running community stalls, doing our roving councillor street surgeries and calling round knocking on doors to listen to local concerns.

This will be the latest 20mph zone in the Rothwell ward in our campaign to get many of our suitable roads into the zones, following successful schemes introduced in Carlton, Woodlesford, Haigh Road, and Victoria Primary school.

The highways department tell me:

“Preliminary speed surveys have been undertaken and the results have indicated that this area can be implemented as a 20mph Limit. With the current driver behaviour on these streets, traffic calming should not be required in order to bring vehicle speeds down to an acceptable level. Post implementation monitoring will be undertaken to ensure that this has been successful.

In addition to this the existing School Keep Clear markings will be formalised by introducing a Traffic Regulation Order to that affect. This will allow Leeds City Council to enforce them and will be in force from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.”

This is another measure in our campaign to improve road safety in Rothwell, Woodlesford, Oulton and Carlton. A recent addition was the two crossings in Oulton to help school children in Woodlesford and Oulton cross the road safely and funding luminous clips for the children to wear.

We’re also hoping to get funding for installing mobile speed camera units, on an occasional basis on the John O Gaunts end of A639:  These will need an area to be installed on the central reservation for a vehicle to be parked up and appropriate signage

At the same time we are tackling parking problems outside our school including Rothwell Primary and have again had discussions with the neighbourhood policing team and requested regular police checks to be undertaken around all our local schools at peak times in Rothwell, Woodlesford, Oulton and Carlton and action to help to try to ensure safer parking including ticketing and this was agreed as a way forward.

This is the proposed 20mph zone and parking restrictions.