Birmingham City Council leaders are coming together to work towards an environment where no-one is killed or seriously injured on its roads.
This is a challenging but imperative goal that can only be achieved through ‘relentless partnership’ working, the council has said. “In recent weeks, several unacceptable acts of road violence have led to needless deaths and serious injuries on our roads. The outrage felt by communities is clear and justified.”
Partners from across the region have been working around the clock to reflect on the council’s approach and ensure it is doing all it can to tackle the kind of dangerous behaviour that blights its communities. This includes a series of Gold Command meetings chaired by Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara as part of the immediate response involving partners and an intelligence-led approach to enforcement.
On Tuesday 18th July, the Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street chaired a meeting with partners including Craig Guildford, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, Cllr Liz Clements, Cabinet Member for Transport at Birmingham City Council, Simon Foster, the Police & Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands, Anne Shaw, Executive Director at Transport for West Midlands, Mel Jones, Head of Transport Planning at Birmingham City Council, Mark Shelswell, Assistant Director of Highways and Infrastructure. and Adam Tranter, the Mayor’s Cycling & Walking Commissioner.
In this meeting, it was agreed that:
*A new Operation Triton, led by Police and supported by partners, will focus on relentless enforcement of the rules of the road through intelligence-led operations and hot spot enforcement.
*A second team on the West Midlands Police Road Harm Prevention Team will bolster efforts to enforce against people who endanger vulnerable road users. In addition, two new road crime teams will work day and night to target the most dangerous of drivers.
*TfWM will launch a new high-profile road safety campaign in August supported and co-funded by each partner.
*West Midlands Police will grow capacity for third party reporting, giving communities power to submit dash cam and helmet cam footage to support Police in tackling anti-social driving in their areas.
*Birmingham City Council will consult on reducing speed limits on main roads in the city to 30mph from 40mph and has commenced a pilot scheme to reprogram crossings to make them more responsive to pedestrians and give them longer times to cross.
*West Midlands Police will equip and upskill local Policing teams to tackle road safety in their communities, with a particular focus on anti-social driving and speeding.
*The Police & Crime Commissioner will allocate a portion of the upcoming Safer Streets 5 funding to be used to tackle anti-social use of roads.
Partners are working together to increase the number of average speed cameras across the network to tackle speeding on our most dangerous roads.
Overall, West Midlands Police will work towards a significant increase in speed enforcement from 2024 in order that compliance with speed limits improves.
Birmingham City Council will accelerate their A45 active travel scheme with spades in the ground for the first phase by this winter.
In September, TfWM will launch a revised Road Safety Strategy with the goal of a 50% reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured on our road network by the end of 2030; this is a pathway to our ultimate target of Vision Zero.
TfWM’s and Birmingham’s new Road Safety strategy, due this winter, will be aligned to tackle this together.
These activities will complement the medium and long-term work in developing and delivering schemes which support active travel and improve the safety of vulnerable road users, in line with stated aims in the TfWM Local Transport Plan and the city council’s Birmingham Transport Plan.
