Queen's Honour for King

The campaign for a 20mph speed limit in Haddenham is gathering pace. It has just received a boost with the award in the Queen's Birthday honours of an MBE for Rod King, the founder of the national campaign '20's Plenty for Us'. Rod has provided us with a lot of advice and information and helped set up the Haddenham campaign website.

But the significance of Rod's award, which was 'for services to road safety', is that it shows beyond doubt that central government is now fully in favour of 20mph in streets where people live. Dare we say that the Queen has joined the campaign?!

Here's a sobering fact: In the same distance that a vehicle travelling at 20mph takes to stop, a vehicle travelling at 30mph is still doing 24mph!

A 20mph village would give us safe and friendly streets, less exhaust and noise pollution, more people would walk or cycle, it would be great for children and their parents, and relations between drivers and other users of the street would be transformed. All this for a few extra seconds driving time.

A completely new deal for residents. Not all at once, perhaps: but after a time people get used to it, most people like it and wonder why it took so long.

People who have signed the petition now represent 230 separate Haddenham households. We need quite a few more before we can ask Bucks County Council to launch the 20mph process, which involves formal consultation with all interested parties. So if you would like a 20mph speed limit in Haddenham, please go to our website and sign the petition online.

The national campaign has a very informative website here

Alternatively, if you would like more information or would like to comment, please write to haddenham20@gmail.com.