London’s Congestion Charge Zone to have a 20mph speed limit from next week

Roads within the London Congestion Charge Zone will have a 20mph speed limit from Monday 2 March as part of the Mayors efforts to cut road deaths and serious injuries in the capital, Transport for London (TfL) has confirmed today,

All 5.5 miles of roads within the charging zone – which covers the same roads as the Ultra Low Emission Zone – will have the limit cut to 20mph and all speed cameras re-calibrated in time to enforce it next week.

Drivers caught speeding by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in central London will receive three penalty points on their driving licence and a fine of £100.

Announcing the news today, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: ‘I am absolutely determined to do everything I can to eradicate all deaths and serious injuries on London’s roads and these new measures are a vital step along the way to helping us to achieve this.

‘By cutting speed limits on TfL’s roads within the Congestion Zone we are saving lives, while at the same time making our streets more appealing for Londoners to walk and cycle around the capital.’

According to TfL’s own figures, speed is a factor in around 37 per cent of collisions in London where a person dies or is seriously injured.

The new limit was first announced back in September following a public consultation about cutting these casualty statistics in central London.

Mr Khan said at the time that the lower limits would be enforced from May 2020, but appears to have fast-tracked the reduction by two months. 

More than 2,000 members of the public responded to the proposal, receiving mixed opinions.

Around half of those surveyed said a lower speed limit would have a positive impact on the number of people who choose to walk and three in five said it would boost cycling numbers.

However, when asked if they would ditch their cars, less than a third said a 20mph limit would result in them travelling across the capital by foot.

TfL is now implementing new signage and road markings in preparation for the lower speed limits from Monday and is also adding raised pedestrian crossings.

This will cover 39 per cent of all of London’s roads. 

Speed cameras are also being calibrated to the new limit and will be ready to catch motorists who exceed it from the introduction date.

This is likely to spark an increase in speeding offences, with police in London already processing around 160,000 speeding tickets each year – 42,000 of which are for offences committed in 20mph zones. 

To crack down on these motorists, TfL has also confirmed it and Metropolitan Police will have a new ‘speed enforcement team’ setup as part of a joint commitment.

This team will specifically target ‘dangerous, careless and illegal driving across London’s roads’.

From April, it will identify speeding drivers across the capital, including within the new 20mph speed limits.

‘The team will be deployed to known high-risk locations for speeding and will respond to stakeholder and community concerns about drivers speeding in their area, equipped with the newest laser video speed enforcement technology,’ a TfL statement confirmed.

Entering the charge zone costs motorists £11.50, though the fee is exempt for drivers of plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and electric cars.

Those rules will be tightened up from next year, when even PHEV users will need to pay the daily rate.

The decision to cut limits received mixed responses from industry insiders. 

Joshua Harris from road safety charity Brake described the decision as ‘fantastic news’ and urged other authorities and central government to consider 20mph the ‘default for urban areas’.

However, the AA pointed out that TfL’s own figures show that the average speed reached by drivers in central London is only 7.4mph – and as a result would have little to no impact on reducing casualties. 

Roger Lawson of the Alliance of British Drivers said the lowered limits would have a ‘negligible’ impact on road casualties but ‘make life more difficult for drivers and result in many more speeding fines as the police will be stepping up enforcement measures’. 

He added: ‘This is one more step in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy to deter people from using cars in London.

‘London is becoming a ghetto of anti-car fanatics. These proposals are being advocated in the name of road safety despite the fact that TfL refuse to give any estimates of the alleged benefits, probably because they know they will turn out to be false. 

‘The proposals are likely to be an enormous waste of money and contribute further to TfL’s budget deficit.’ 

Critics will also point to a UK study that found there was no significant reduction in accidents in areas around the country where there was a 20mph limit.

Manchester City Council was forced to scrap a 20mph scheme that cost taxpayers £1.7million after it found that the reduced limit made no difference.

It was abandoned in 2017 – five years after it launched – when figures revealed average driving speeds in some trial areas had actually gone up.