Brighton & Hove Council is considering proposals to reduce the number of cars coming into the city to address the high numbers of people that have accidents and are killed on the city’s roads every year.

The city council will discuss plans to sign up to the Road Danger Reduction Forum charter which looks at ways to make roads safer for all road users.

In 2019, 168 people were killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents in Brighton and Hove, Department for Transport figures said. This was a decrease of 8 per cent on the year before, when there were 182, reports the Argus.

But last year, when the UK went into lockdown, the number of deaths and serious injuries fell dramatically, it said.

Brighton and Hove’s Green group said this shows the need to reduce the number of cars on the city’s roads to prevent future fatalities.

Councillor Elaine Hills, member of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee told the Argus in Brighton: “We’ve spent the past century engineering our public spaces to make driving more convenient and other forms of transport less convenient. Consequently, more and more people are driving. No matter how much safer we make cars, the casualty numbers remain high.

“But, during the first lockdown last spring, deaths and serious injuries on our roads plummeted by 70 per cent. I think this makes it clear that we need to look at ways of reducing the number of vehicles on our roads to keep people safe.

“We’re conditioned into accepting that the price we pay is the freedom for our children to play outdoors or walk to school without being chaperoned, due to parents’ legitimate fears that one false move and their child could be the next road casualty.

“We have a responsibility to do what we can to prevent tragic collisions on our roads – whether it be drivers, cyclists or pedestrians.

“We also need to ensure roads are safer for those who do need to use cars. Right now, we do not take a preventative approach to road danger and we want to change this. If we are to see more people walking and cycling, and make roads accessible for all users, we must consider safety and put this at the heart of transport projects.”