School zone speed limits changing in Stratford

Stratford District Council (SDC) is lowering the speed limits in school zones across the district, and you can have your say on the proposed changes this month.

SDC is changing the permanent speed to 30 km/hr for urban school zones and 60 km/hr for rural school zones. This is in response to the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2021, which came into effect on 19 May 2022.

Director Assets Victoria Araba says, “During June we consulted with our school communities and properties directly affected by the school zone speed limits. Using their feedback we've made some minor amendments to our original proposals, such as reducing the Makahu School zone to 30km/h instead of 60km/h, and now we’d like to hear from the wider community.”

The proposed speed limit zones can be viewed on our website here and feedback is open until Friday 16 September 2022.

“The speed limits do have to change, there’s no question about that, but we want to know from the community if the zone areas are fit for purpose and if they agree with the need to have the speed limits permanently fixed for those zones,” says Victoria.

The alternative to a permanent speed limit is a variable speed limit, which uses different times of the day to enforce a lower speed. This is currently in place outside Stratford Primary School, where the speed limit is 40km/h during school drop-off and school pickup on week days.

While these changes have come about because of a Land Transport Rule, they work alongside SDC’s wider School Safety Project. “This project seeks to improve the safety of streets near school entrances for students and all road users, encourage active travel to school and reduce congestion,” says Victoria.

The School Safety Project is currently focusing on improvements to the streets surrounding Stratford High School, but will be rolled out across all urban schools over the coming years.

To have your say on the school zone speed limit changes, you can:

• email submissions@stratford.govt.nz using “School Zone Speed Limits” as the subject header
• write to Steve Taylor, Projects Manager Stratford District Council PO Box 320 Stratford 4352
• complete a short online form

Submissions close 16 September 2022.