Member Article

Business backs Liverpool City Council road safety campaign

A clutch of Liverpool’s highest profile businesses have signed up to promote the city’s principal road safety campaign: the 20 effect.

The city’s highway maintenance and environmental services contractor Amey is joined by the registered social landlord and partner in the Anfield Project, Your Housing Group to take the campaign message onto the city’s streets by incorporating road safety messages into their vehicle liveries.

These are joined by the Royal Mail which has been carrying 20 effect messages since early 2013. In total, around 500 vehicles will now carry notices around the city.

In addition, taxi drivers in the city have also been enlisted to show their support while key city property managers Bruntwood, Downing and Peel, are distributing information in their buildings to visitors and tenants.

Mike Cafferky, Business Director – North at Amey said: “This is an important campaign and one which we are delighted to support. Our vehicles travel every inch of the city’s road network doing everything from repairing potholes, installing street lighting to residential waste collections. We cover thousands of miles each year and therefore have an important role to play in making the streets safer for all users.”

Jordan Brown, Maintenance Manager at Your Housing Group added: “The focus of our organisation is all about improving the environment in which our current and future tenants live. We strongly believe in making places better for the whole community and a key part of that is the safety of the roads.”

Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet member for Transport, Cllr Malcolm Kennedy said: “It is tremendously encouraging to have these businesses supporting the campaign and we thank them for their commitment. They represent some of the highest profile businesses in the city and will help take the 20 effect message out to a range of different audiences.”

Backed by Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire & Rescue and Merseytravel, the 20 effect will ultimately see a new 20 mph speed limit on 70 per cent of the city’s streets. Focussing on residential streets rather than main thoroughfares, the programme started in 2012 and is in the process of being rolled out city-wide. The programme enjoys overwhelming public support in Liverpool.

Liverpool’s 20 effect programme has won recognition from road safety campaigners for its ‘community first’ approach and the subsequent driver education and enforcement activity while other English cities have sought out advice from Liverpool in preparing their own 20mph programmes.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Robert Allat .