A recent Cheshire West and Chester Council report on the borough's 20mph zones has revealed the relative safety of Frodsham's residential roads.

The Council's 20mph Speed Limit Programme was first introduced in 2016 to reduce average speeds and road traffic collisions on residential streets across the borough with average speeds of less than 24mph.

20mph speed limits have also been introduced outside schools where the mean vehicular speed is below 30mph, in part to help encourage children to walk and cycle to school.

The purpose of the 20mph speed limits is not to deal with problems of speeding motorists, which are addressed using engineering measures or enforcement, but rather to improve road safety and air quality.

At a Places Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting last night (Thursday 11 March), Cheshire West Councillors discussed a report regarding the third year of the programme, during which 58 20mph zones were introduced in the borough.

These included various locations around Frodsham, as well as outside Alvanley and Norley Primary Schools.

The report compared the number of collisions that occurred in each location in the three years preceding the introduction of the scheme and in the year following.

It showed no great reduction in the number of accidents on local residential roads, but this is because there were very few to begin with.

Over the course of all four years, there were four collisions – and no deaths or serious injuries - recorded at the Frodsham 20mph locations, with one at Alvanley Primary School and none at Norley Primary School.

However, each local 20mph zone did result in a marked reduction in average car speed, as was the case across the borough.

The effect of slowing car speeds to 20mph can be seen more clearly on west Cheshire's busier, more dangerous roads. For example, following the introduction of such a speed limit in Cheshire city centre, total collisions fell from 44 to 10, while in Stanney Grange, Ellesmere Port, the figure fell from 19 to 6.

A 20mph speed limit introduced previously in Helsby also seems to have yielded positive results. In the three years previous to the scheme, there were four collisions recorded at this location, while in the three years following there were none.

In Cheshire West as a whole, the first three years of the 20mph programme have seen a 43 per cent drop in collisions occurring in these areas, with a 14 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured and a 47 per cent fall in slight injuries.

During the meeting, Deputy Council Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways & Strategic Transport, said: "I believe that [these figures] demonstrate that the 20 mph policy is a winner and has improved safety."