Dr Allinson: It Wasn’t Me

Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson has written the Green Party to tell them he wasn’t responsible for the decision not to fund rolling out 20mph zones across the island.

The party wrote to Dr Allinson asking for further info on the Treasury’s decision not to back rolling out 20mph domestic zones across the island.

In his reply, the minister said the decision was made by a previous Treasury board and so he is ‘not party to the conversations which took place when the financing of this proposal was discussed’.

He added: ‘The funding request was for a total of £2,891,200 which included £240,000 for design and professional fees and a further £240,000 contingency estimate.

‘As outlined in the written Tynwald answer, this bid was considered against all the other competing requests during that budget process and unfortunately Treasury were unable to accommodate this considerable amount within the financial resources available at the time.

‘This is in no way a repudiation of the October 2022 Tynwald resolution on speed limits in residential areas.’

Dr Allinson said that despite the DoI’s bid being rejected, it has been able to introduce 20mph zones simply by altering signs.

In their letter, the Green Party made references to the work that followed this decision regarding the economic benefit of lower speed limits in residential areas.

Dr Allinson said: ‘Tynwald approved the Road Safety Strategy 2019-2029 which had as its foundation the “Safe System Approach”. Economic considerations are included as part of this document.

‘The agreed strategy was very much focused on human injury, the encouragement of active travel and enhancing the vibrancy of our communities. I am not sure whether any environmental impact assessments were included with the original funding request and you might want to ask the Department of Infrastructure about this and whether they plan to include climate impact assessments as part of their capital planning under the Climate Change Act 2021.’