Three months since Birmingham’s 'road safety emergency' declared - what has changed

It’s been just over three months since Birmingham City Council declared a road safety emergency amid fears over the number of tragic deaths. It was back in late July that Majid Mahmood, the council’s cabinet member for transport, said there were “high and growing levels of concern” about safety on the city’s roads from residents, community groups and politicians.

“We feel that a Road Safety Emergency must be declared,” he wrote at the time. “We request the immediate standing up of a Gold Command to coordinate a multi-agency response, before we see even more deaths and serious injuries on our roads.”

The city council’s leaders, West Midlands Mayor and West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner issued a joint statement just days later, confirming that the number of serious incidents in the region required emergency action. But what has been done since to tackle one of the city’s most pressing problems?

READ MORE: Hunt for new commissioners to make West Midlands' roads safer and encourage active travel now on

As campaign groups such as Better Streets for Birmingham continue to push for change, the question of whether enough action is being taken was also raised in a recent meeting of the full council. Addressing Birmingham council’s leader yesterday, Green Party councillor Julien Pritchard said: “Words are not enough to prevent more lives being needlessly lost on our roads.

“When will we see some action to tackle the emergency?” Council leader John Cotton responded by saying the road safety situation was something that “deeply troubles us”.

“We declared the road safety emergency in the summer,” he said. “Steps have been taken by the cabinet member responsible for transport, working with the chief constable and officers of this council, to take forward a number of initiatives.”

He particularly pointed to a group chaired by the chief constable around road safety and steps to reduce speed limits across the city. Pressed on whether action taken so far have been sufficient given the scale of the problem, Coun Cotton admitted: “No, there is still much more work that needs to be done.

“I am confident together, with my colleagues and with partner agencies in this city, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that we meet the challenge we have laid down with that road safety emergency. We all have a duty, across all sectors, to ensure we’re doing all we can to keep people and pedestrians safe.”

Coun Mahmood, cabinet member for transport, said last month: “People have died as a direct result of dangerous driving across our city and this must end. We’re taking action, including working with the police and the mayor to increase the number of average speed cameras across the city, and reducing the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles per hour on our major roads.

“We can’t just police our way out of this though. For too long, our roads have been designed with a driver-first attitude, and in order to make our roads safer, this must change.”

He highlighted work to make Dudley Road safer, including dedicated walking and cycling lanes, improved priority for buses and reduced congestion. Meanwhile, West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker has begun his hunt this week for two new commissioners to help make roads safer and encourage more active travel.

As reported by Birmingham Live, they will be expected to work one day a week and be each paid £10,000 - around £200 per day - for their contributions. But Mr Parker refuted claims he was 'skimping' on the roles by not employing them as 'full time' as he said they would be augmenting what the authority already had.

"Skimping would be cutting back the spending on the £71 million that we've got,” he said. “We want someone to complement the way in which we make decisions and add the additional challenge of scrutiny.

"Those scrutiny roles in organisations are not full time roles, they are additional roles that augment what the organisations are doing. What I've found there were lots of people sitting on boards which had little or no impact on policy.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, Coun Liz Clements, former cabinet member for transport in Birmingham, said she hoped the mayor progresses quickly with the appointments of the two new commissioners. “We need to actually tackle the road safety emergency as though it’s an emergency,” she said.

“Deal with it like we did with Covid because too many people are being killed on our roads. We shouldn’t be tolerating this.”