Councillor ‘appalled’ by changes to school speed limits

Tuesday, 18 February 2025

The Government is forcing councils to change speed limit times outside schools.

New Plymouth ratepayers face the prospect of having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with a Government order to change permanent school speed limits to variable limits over the next few months.

The move has angered New Plymouth district councillor Amanda Clinton-Gohdes, who has accused the Government of putting lives at risk for no real benefit.

“I want to highlight to the community the position the Government has put us in,” she said. “And I’m appalled the Government has put us in this position.”

The New Plymouth District Council meets on Tuesday to decide if it will follow Government orders to change permanent speed limits, and associated signs, outside schools to variable limits.

Despite 89% of ratepayers endorsing the permanent 30kph speed limit outside schools little more than two years ago, council has been told by New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) it must comply.

Amanda Clinton-Gohdes is appalled at the position council has been put in.

If council ignores the mandate, it will face penalties, including fines, although the Government agency is yet to specify what they would be.

Council has three options - retain its existing permanent school speed limits, approve some limits being changed to variable limits or approve all schools being changed.

Staff have recommended to the mayor and councillors they only change some, including three schools in rural areas, three in urban areas and nine schools where traffic calming is already in place.

Council will decide at a later date what it does with the remaining schools in the district.

Changing speed limit signs to variable limits at the 15 schools council identified is expected to cost up to $286,950, with no guarantee NZTA will fund it.

If council follows the Government’s demand to change all school limits to variable limits, then ratepayers could face a bill estimated at up to $920,000, money that has not been factored into council’s capital expenditure budgets.

Permanent speed limits would move to limited speed limits under the plan.

“There was overwhelming support from our community to lower the speed limits around schools to keep our kids safe,” Clinton-Gohdes said.

“Now the Government is forcing us to roll all the changes back. It disregards all the data and expert opinion about keeping our kids safe and has total disregard for the 89% of our community who supported the change.”

A report to council, which endorsed ignoring a section of the Government’s mandate, said changing only 15 schools was “best practice”.

“These schools are unlikely to have vulnerable road users walking to school outside of peak times,” council transport and safety engineer David Brown said.

“Changing these schools to variable would allow for the free flow of traffic outside of peak times while not increasing the risk to vulnerable road users.

“These schools are located near busy roads that the current permanent speed limit does not extend onto, even though the risk to vulnerable road users is present.”

Clinton-Gohdes believed the Government had put council in a position of potentially putting young lives at risk given children arrived and left schools outside of normal hours.

“It just makes no sense and there is no real data available as to why they would make these changes,” she said.

“We are stuck between choosing not to follow the law and choosing not to follow what our community wants us to do. Just because it’s the legal thing to do does not make it the right thing to do.”