Agenda item

To receive a report on measures to improve road safety for all users.

The Service Delivery Manager: Strategic Transport & Highway Network Management presented the report.

The report provided Members with an update on the Council’s road safety strategy, education streams and its current delivery to improve road safety for residents. The report also outlined the progress that the Council had made in the prioritisation and delivery of Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO’s) and road safety engineering schemes.

During the last 5 years, the Council had invested over £7m in road safety improvements and education streams including the introduction of safer routes to schools and 20mph speed zones. The Council have been an active member of the Telford and Wrekin Safer Roads Partnership and have worked with a number of partners including West Mercia Police and Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service. The Partnership aims to reduce the number of deaths or seriously injured persons on roads across the West Mercia area.

Members heard that road safety activities had been delivered across the Borough since the adoption of the Road Safety Strategy in 2015 which aims to identify the causes of collisions. During 2021 and 2023 there had been an increase in the severity of road accidents across the Borough despite delivery of measures to improve road safety and education. This increase had been identified as part of a national trend and remained an area of focus for the Council and national road safety campaign groups. 

In 2016, road traffic accidents had peaked to a total number of 252 recorded collisions with 206 slight collisions, 44 serious collisions and 2 fatal collisions with the majority of collisions caused as a result of driver behaviour such as excess speed or medical circumstances. Since this peak, there was a 44% reduction in the total number of collisions recorded to a total of 141 in 2023, however fatalities had increased to their highest level since 2014.

Since April 2023, the Council had delivered 2,500 road safety education activities and had continued to deliver practical interventions with a focus on working with schools and colleges including schemes such as Bikeability and Be Bright Be Seen, pedestrian training for year 3 and 4 pupils, transition workshops targeted at year 6 pupils moving into secondary education, the introduction of junior road safety officers and targeted campaigns such as don’t drink and drive.

Members also heard that the Council had led the way in utilising the latest technology to develop and deliver innovative virtual reality (VR) headsets for road safety education. The package offered facilitates the use of road safety scenarios to provide training on a broad range of issues including the impact of drink and drugs, speed and in-car distractions. As part of the roll out process, headsets packages had been focused on new and young drivers under the age of 25 to highlight the importance of passenger safety and peer pressure. Workshops had also been held with mature drivers working in partnership with West Mercia Police and Shropshire Fire & Rescue. Since it’s launch in March 2024, over 400 people had received VR training sessions and demand had continued to increase with more scenarios planned for delivery over coming years.

Since 2018/19, the Council had invested £850k into safer routes to school programmes with the delivery of over 35 schemes including advisory 20mph zones, traffic calming measures and amendments to parking restrictions.

A pilot project known as New School Journey had been delivered to 1,600 children and young people to encourage more active travel to schools over one academic year. At the start of the year, 51% of pupils travelled to school by car and on completion the most common mode of transport was walking.

A new TOR Management System had been implemented to digitalise the Council’s TROs including a map based approach. As a result, all current and proposed TROs could now be viewed online by residents to ensure transparency and to reduce the need for residents to log enquiries in relation to TRO measures. Briefing packs had also been sent to Elected Members approximately 6-8 weeks before advertisement.

As part of the continued delivery of road safety engineering schemes, annual reports had been developed for each Town and Parish Council area outlining known road concerns and planned works.

Following the update, Members posed the following questions:-

As a primary school teacher for Year 4, you see various initiatives like "Be Bright Be Seen," providing gloves for children to take home. Given the focus on primary schools, will there be a similar review for secondary schools and will there be initiatives involving VR in college environments?

The Active Travel & Road Safety Education Team Leader advised Members that the Team had recognised a gap in road safety education between Year 7 and Year 10 and that the Council was currently exploring how to utilize VR technology for pupils in these age groups. The Council would be looking to  introduce VR initiatives in Years 10 and 11 and to college and A-level students in the near future.

Speeding is a real key issue in the Borough with the biggest issues faced by Parish Councils being road safety. Having recently commissioned a traffic survey on the B4394 through Allscott Meads, it identified that the majority of vehicles were travelling over 70mph. Could the Council consider putting forward a traffic calming scheme for Allscott Meads, similar to the one that has been proposed for Roden?

The Traffic and Road Safety Engineering Team Leader advised that the implementation of a traffic calming scheme in Allscott Meads had been delayed due to TRO and signage issues as a result of developers. It was confirmed that the speed limit proposal had recently been approved without being opposed and new signage would be installed from March 2025.

Can you advise why there is a significant delay with installing speed indicator devices (SIDs) that have been requested by Parish Councils?

The Traffic and Road Safety Engineering Team Leader advised that the original locations for SID devices in Roden had been proposed as part of a revised scheme and that the devices had now been moved to their permanent positions and would be operational within a few weeks.

The Director: Neighbourhood & Enforcement Services informed Members that the Council had completed significant work in relation to TROs to increase awareness and advised that if there are road schemes or TROs that are of importance to Members, the Council would be happy to work with Parishes to prioritise them.

Members received an update from the Operational Policing Unit Inspector for Telford and Wrekin on the work of the Community Safety Partnership. The Operational Policing Unit Inspector informed Members that the Partnership had recently introduced a Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) working group whereby Local Policing Area (LPA) leads had been invited to participate in the coordination of force operations and assets. Issues raised at the working group meetings were fed back to Parishes and Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs). Members also heard that at the time of the meeting, Telford & Wrekin had the least amount of KSIs across West Mercia with 5 fatal collisions recorded in the last year as a result of drink or drug driving compared to Shropshire who had 21 fatal collisions recorded in the last year.

Members participated in a live demonstration of the VR headsets during the meeting and thanked officers and West Merica Police for their attendance.