Accusations of 'virtue signalling' as Rotherham Council discusses smart motorways

A Yorkshire council has been accused of ‘virtue signalling’ over its stance against smart motorways.
The M1 in South YorkshireThe M1 in South Yorkshire
The M1 in South Yorkshire

In a meeting held by Rotherham Council yesterday, Coun Emma Hoddinott introduced a notice of motion to reiterate the council’s opposition to all-lane running using the hard shoulder as a permanent live traffic lane, and support campaigns to get all-lane running reverted.

Coun Hoddinott said: “This motion reaffirms the position that this council as held since 2013 that smart motorways using all lane running has serious and potentially fatal consequences, and tragically, families have had to suffer those fatal consequences, with four fatal collisions between junctions 32 and 36 on the M1 in two and a half years.

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“This is for a stretch of road where the public data shows there are no fatal accidents for the four years before the motorway was changed to the system.

Rotherham town centreRotherham town centre
Rotherham town centre

“The hard shoulder on motorways has been around for decades for a reason, and it needs to be reinstated on the one in South Yorkshire.

“Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to Claire Mercer, who lost her husband Jason on the M1, and has been a tireless and admirable campaigner on the issue.”

However, Lib Dem councillor Adam Carter, who represents the Brinsworth and Catcliffe Ward, accused the Labour administration of using the council to “virtue signal about an issue over which it does not have control.”

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Coun Carter extended his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives on the motorway, adding: “Labour introduced these motorways as a concept and rapidly expanded them when in government, instead of investing in widening motorways at the time.

“Secondly, there are 5000 miles of A roads in the country that have at least dual carriageways, that have speed limits of 70mph, yet do not have hard shoulders, and nothing in this motion mentions these and improving safety on those.

“Thirdly, the solution here is surely to increase the number of refuge points, as the AA has mentioned, and to install intelligent technology to make them actually smart to identify accidents and crashes, rather than relying solely on police vehicle patrols and human monitoring of cameras.

“This would be a much more sensible position to adopt and lobby for as I think returning to the motorway set up of over a decade ago is an unrealistic outcome.

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“This is yet another example of this Labour administration using the council to virtue signal about an issue over which it does not have control. It shows a clear instinct from Labour to be an anti-business, “not in my back yard” administration who seem quite happy for nothing to change in the borough and keep things as they always have been.

“In voting against this motion, I am saying that the solution provided in this motion is the wrong one, even though the motion correctly identifies that these smart motorways need to be safer.”

In response, Coun Hoddinott said she needed to “pick her jaw up from the floor”, adding: “We [the council] were consulted as part of the instruction on the M1 and in 2013 we did tell the government about our concerns.

“This is not about virtue signalling, this is about supporting those affected and reaffirming our committment that we have serious safety concerns for all the reasons that we’ve heard.”

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