Green councillor Fiona Mawson claims there is “no visible enforcement”

Concerns have been raised by Green Party district councillors that speeding enforcement on 20mph roads in parts of Oxfordshire are not being enforced properly.

Councillors Fiona Mawson and Ian Middleton have challenged police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber on Thames Valley Police’s record of speed enforcement in Cherwell and West Oxfordshire. 

Ian Middleton, the county council’s Green group leader, said in a meeting in March that enforcement statistics are “woefully out of date” and that the most recent figures he could find showed a 37.7 per cent decrease in enforcement activity across Cherwell and West Oxfordshire between January and March 2025 despite a reported increase in speeding violations in the previous period. He said that 20mph limits were introduced partly “because collision survival rates are significantly higher” at 20mph than at 30mph.

Speaking after the meeting Fiona Mawson said: “It was disappointing to hear the commissioner seemingly dismiss the idea that TVP should be enforcing the new lower limits which are aimed at keeping our communities safe, particularly the most vulnerable such as children and cyclists…data shows that local rural roads and urban streets experience significantly higher numbers of accidents and fatalities than motorways, with rural roads often being the most dangerous per mile”.

Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber, said: “The force continues to make assessment for speed enforcement based on threat, harm and risk, deploying resources where they are needed most.”