Why Ilkley Town Council rolling out more speed humps is the wrong approach - Yorkshire Post Letters

On August 1 Ilkley Town Council held a meeting at the Clarke Foley Centre to discuss road safety. They are to impose a blanket 20 mph speed limit controlled by 143 speed humps at a cost of £200,000 of which Ilkley residents are to pay £87,500.

It would have been more appropriate if this meeting had been scheduled on April 1. All fools day.

Speed limits without effective controls are useless and speed humps punish everyone indiscriminately. Only those with large 4x4s designed for off road and high powered luxury cars are unaffected. But the disabled, emergency and utility services and cyclists are made to suffer.

Speed humps cost more than cameras. Speed cameras catch or deter offenders. And this is what the Ilkley public are asking for. Cameras, not humps. But no. Ilkley Town Council knows better.

The performance of the Town Council was pathetic and they were more afraid of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (BMDC) than the residents who elected them.

Although the result of the public consultation, which has only just been released, showed overwhelming opposition to speed humps the council undemocratically approved.

This raises the old chestnut of democracy, separation and independence from BMDC or alternatively to abolish the Town Council altogether. Unfortunately having witnessed the appalling feebleness of the Town Council this, not an obvious choice, becomes a serious option. A vote of no confidence must now be held if democracy is to mean anything.

The Town Council’s lack of vision on how to make the Town safer and improve quality of life was palpable.

Discussions were restricted to speed and humps alone. Nothing was said about alternative cheaper and more effective speed cameras, replacing zebra crossings with pelicans or pedestrianisation of the Grove.

This meeting was filled to capacity with an overflow of people standing outside the building in the street. A truly democratic sample of Ilkley.

Although public sentiment is for a comprehensive review, the ITC decided to proceed and accept Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s plans. The votes cast are decided by tribal politics rather than the interests of the public.

At this meeting, ITC dismissed democracy as a side issue and claimed, despite its attempts to cover up and delay releasing the result of the consultation, that due process had been followed.

The crowds of people who attended this meeting, were, according to them, unrepresentative.

Democracy it seems, an irrelevance.

Clearly ITC, does not represent the people of Ilkley and is a worthless expense we can well do without.

Instead of these amateur politicians, Ilkley should “follow the money”, and hold Bradford Metropolitan District Council and the government to account. It is they to whom we pay our taxes and it is they who must be accountable.

On current performance Ilkley Town Council is nothing but an hindrance, and an insult to democracy.