Question over cost of ‘safety zone’

Oldham Council Cabinet
A SCHOOL safety zone in Delph costing £104,000 was queried by Saddleworth parish councillor Ken Hulme.

As part of public questions, he asked who had authorised such an expensive scheme which contained neither a pedestrian crossing nor a mandatory 20mph limit outside Delph School, but had included engineering works which residents felt had made the road less safe.

He added that it had taken him three months to get the cost information of the scheme through a Freedom of Information request, three times the statutory response period.

Councillor Jean Stretton, Cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said the FOI had been submitted to the previous administration and the response time was not good enough.

She said all decisions about the scheme were taken by the previous administration, but that police at the time said a sole mandatory 20mph zone would not be enough to guarantee lower speeds along a particular length of road.