Funding the Calm

Tapping into Active Travel England, Levelling Up, & Developer Contributions.

As this website is dedicated to the quiet art and science of traffic calming I thought it might be useful to share some thoughts on the funding opportunities available to our beleaguered highway authorities.

As the funding pots have diversified, matured and grown there has been a gradual but seismic shift in the value that is placed on ‘traditional’ traffic calming products. I have been lucky enough to advise highway authorities in almost every region of the UK on how to secure government and developer funding for active travel schemes over the past 20 years. In that time, one theme has become increasingly clear – traffic calming is no longer optional if you want to unlock millions in government cash and developer contributions.

The availability of funding is genuinely impressive. Since 2020, more than £2 billion of active travel funding has been committed by the Department for Transport via its Active Travel Fund. The Levelling Up Fund, controlled by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has so far spent £4.8 billion over three funding rounds, with town centre regeneration a priority theme. Add in what’s now routinely described as ‘the hundreds of millions of pounds’ raised through Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy contributions and the funding picture looks very attractive indeed. However, and it’s a big however, the challenge for authorities keen to access these pots is how to fit traffic calming products into the compelling narratives they are looking for around active travel, town centre regeneration, home zone placemaking, high streets recovery and so on.

The short answer is it’s not rocket science. Properly designed traffic calming schemes are 100% about delivering what these pots of cash are designed for, in terms of safer streets, more walking and cycling, regenerated town centres and people actually wanting to be outdoors in their communities. If you haven’t managed to make that connection yet, I can help.

Context – the current UK funding landscape

In summary, there is genuinely a lot of money out there but its only accessible through various pots and trusts via mechanisms and assessment criteria that demand strategic thinking and robust evidence. The DfT’s Active Travel Fund which has been administered since 2022 by the government department Active Travel England (ATE) has seen over £2 billion committed to walking and cycling infrastructure since its inception in 2020. The Levelling Up Fund administered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has allocated £4.8 billion across three funding rounds to date, with town centre regeneration as a priority. Developer contributions are a little harder to track but generally accepted to be rising year-on-year to generate in the region of hundreds of millions of pounds annually for councils, much of which is languishing in account balances due to the lack of suitable projects to apply it to.

This should all be music to the ears of highway engineers tasked with or responsible for highway budget delivery. The big difference now, which I’m sorry to report to those who don’t know or have not been paying attention, is that these pots are no longer viewed as entirely separate by the most successful authorities, who are now combining them into comprehensive programmes of work where traffic calming is a central part of their delivery strategy. If you look at successful examples like Waltham Forest’s Mini Holland programme, for example, what you’ll see is a scheme which was initially funded via TfL’s Liveable Neighbourhoods programme but was sustained through a combination of subsequent Active Travel Fund tranches and developer contributions from the borough’s significant residential development pipeline. The speed humps and modal filters which define the scheme were not viewed as ‘bolt on’ features but the physical manifestation of the policy objectives which unlocked the funding.

The relatively new Active Travel England organisation was created by the Department for Transport in 2022 as an executive agency and has brought a far more rigorous evidence-based assessment process than the default historic practice of highways engineers bidding blind. ATE’s inspectorate will review schemes based on their alignment to Local Transport Note 1/20 (LTN 1/20) – the DfT’s design guidance that sets the gold standard for cycle infrastructure design. What’s missed by many highway teams is that LTN 1/20 explicitly mentions traffic calming as a key part of low-traffic neighbourhoods and school streets, with Section 10.5.6 stating “Vertical traffic calming features such as speed humps and speed tables are effective at reducing vehicle speeds and should be considered where lower speed limits alone are insufficient”.

Far from being permissive language, this is a highly prescriptive statement of intent. ATE’s inspectors are not only actively looking for schemes that show commitment to reducing traffic speeds and volumes, but will actively down-score bids that focus on, say, painted cycle lanes on a 30mph distributor road without a traffic calming element to reduce vehicle speeds and volumes through physical design. By contrast, bids which link speed humps and raised tables at side roads to continuous footway treatment as part of a coherent 20mph neighbourhood will score highly.

Active Travel England: Making Traffic Calming Central to your Bid

The ATF operates on a capability and ambition model, with authorities assessed on their previous delivery and existing capacity against a scale of Level 1 to Level 4 with higher levels giving access to larger allocations and greater flexibility. The key insight for highway engineers is that the assessment is as much about understanding and demonstrating alignment to high-quality active travel infrastructure principles as previous delivery.

I have been on the receiving end of dozens of successful ATF bids in my time and it’s a pattern that is really beginning to tell itself. The best applications have very little by way of traffic calming as a separate workstream. Instead, speed reduction is treated as the bedrock upon which all the other deliverables sit and is implicitly understood by all decision-makers to be the essential foundation that makes everything else possible. The example I always cite in this respect is Manchester’s Bee Network programme, which received a £160 million ATF award. The bid documentation which survived to final delivery linked traffic calming products very explicitly to their network-wide approach in that it argued that 20mph limits backed up by physical speed calming measures would create the low-stress environment necessary for uptake at the scale necessary to achieve ‘mass cycling’.

The evidence base in their bid was exemplary: collision data used to show casualty reduction following prior speed hump installations, traffic counts used to demonstrate traffic volume reduction and crucially, public consultation responses which showed community support for traffic calming when it was framed as part of a holistic active travel approach. This should be the model to which all authorities should aspire.

If you’re building your ATF bid, set your traffic calming proposals against these core themes which will be high on Active Travel England’s agenda:

Coherent Networks: LTN 1/20 makes it very clear that cycle routes need to be continuous and intuitive and traffic calming is an enabler for this as it creates low-traffic streets which can form the network backbone. You should be mapping how speed humps and modal filters will reduce through-traffic on residential streets, converting them into quiet, connective routes which provide an attractive alternative to taking children to school, cycling to work or accessing town centres and transport hubs. The CIHT’s Planning for Walking guidance can be used to show how these interventions also facilitate pedestrian movement – raised tables at junctions for example which improve crossing opportunities and which can also signal priority for footway users over vehicles.

Safety by Design: ATE is not looking to fund new cycling infrastructure which will not be used by women, children and older people who are deterred by high-speed traffic. Reference the DfT’s Reported Road Casualties Great Britain statistics which consistently show that speed is the determining factor in the severity of any collisions which do occur. A well designed speed hump scheme on a school route is not just another piece of infrastructure, it’s a laser-focused intervention to remove parental concerns about children cycling to school. The ability to quantify this, using the example above of a scheme which impacts three primary schools with 1,800 pupils, will make your argument compelling. National data suggests 2% currently cycle to school but 40% would consider doing so if the conditions were safe. That’s potentially 684 extra child cycle trips every day.

Compliance with Design Standards: This is where many bids fall at the first fence. ATE will reject schemes which do not conform to the design standards set out in LTN 1/20 and this includes traffic calming. Reference Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 for correct signage and crucially for the purpose of this discussion, the DfT’s Traffic Advisory Leaflet 7/20 on Quiet Lanes and Home Zones, which sets out detailed guidance on speed hump profiles, spacing, installation tolerances and appropriate materials. If you’re proposing sinusoidal humps for example, then include the exact dimensions of 75mm height and 3.7m wavelength which have been shown to be effective for 20mph compliance without excessive vehicle discomfort. This level of detail says ‘we know what we’re doing’.

Community Engagement: The biggest challenge, but also your biggest opportunity when it comes to traffic calming. Meaningful consultation is a key part of Active Travel England’s assessment framework and they will award significant marks for this. Don’t just state that “residents were consulted”. Show them that you have been listening by addressing concerns and specifically referencing them in your bid documentation. If the objections are around emergency vehicle access, for example, then explain that you have had meetings with the local fire service and ambulance trust and quote the Fire and Rescue Service’s own guidance which confirms that modern appliances are not impeded by properly designed speed humps. If the humps are a noise issue (vehicles grinding over the speed humps) then tell them you’re specifying profiled rubber or sinusoidal products which minimise impact noise and cite the TRL report PPR 227 which did the noise level measurement on different hump types.

One of the things I always do is include extracts from letters of support from local schools, residents’ associations, parish councils, etc. A simple statement from a headteacher that “parents have repeatedly cited traffic speed as the reason they drive their children to school” is the sort of quote which will make you a compelling case for speed humps in the surrounding streets.

Levelling Up Fund: Traffic Calming as Town Centre Regeneration

The Levelling Up Fund is a different beast to Active Travel England, but traffic calming is no less applicable—in fact, it’s arguably more important. It’s about the economy, about regenerating high streets, about places where people want to spend time and money. And nothing kills a town centre faster than treating it like a motorway with side-streets.

Round 3 of the Levelling Up Fund closed in 2023, but it’s safe to assume the successful bids set the pattern for future funding rounds. DLUHC’s published assessment criteria put significant weight on schemes that could show economic impact, local plan conformity, and deliverability. Traffic calming hits all three.

Look at Darlington’s £20 million award for town centre transformation, for example. The scheme proposed significant public realm investment, but the enabling intervention is traffic calming across the central area—speed humps on approach roads, raised tables at key junctions, 20mph zone covering the retail core. The bid documentation made the economic case front and centre: pedestrian footfall monitoring data from similar schemes in York and Chester demonstrated 15-20% increases following traffic calming and public realm investment. Retail spend data from the Association of Town and City Management showed that pedestrians spend more per visit than car-borne visitors. The traffic calming wasn’t an add-on—it was the mechanism to deliver the economic outcomes the fund was set up to achieve.

That’s the framing that’s effective for Levelling Up bids: traffic calming as economic infrastructure. Your application should quantify the baseline -vehicle speeds, traffic volumes, pedestrian counts, dwell time in public spaces – and model the impact of intervention. If your town centre high street carries 8,000 vehicles per day at an average speed of 28mph, and you’re proposing speed humps and junction treatments to deliver 20mph compliance and reduce volumes to 5,000 vehicles per day, what’s the impact on the pedestrian environment?

Use the Urban Design Group’s guidance on street design to articulate that transformation. Slower speeds means narrower effective carriageway widths, which releases space for wider footways, street trees, outdoor seating. Lower traffic volumes means lower noise and better air quality – cite the DfT’s Transport Analysis Guidance on environmental impacts to monetise these benefits. Dropping from 28mph to 20mph typically delivers a 3-4 decibel noise reduction. Research shows that this is both perceptible and valued by the public.

The ADEPT Liveable Streets Design Guide, from the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, provides the technical underpinning for this argument. It explicitly locates traffic calming within the hierarchy of street design interventions, noting that “physical measures to reduce vehicle speeds are essential where streets are to function as social spaces rather than traffic corridors”. Quote it in your bid. It carries weight because ADEPT is the body that represents the highway authorities that will be delivering these schemes.

The other critical factor for Levelling Up Fund success is deliverability. DLUHC wants schemes that can be implemented quickly and that won’t be derailed by legal challenge or procurement delays. Traffic calming scores highly here because the processes are well-established. Your bid should set out the TRO process, noting that speed humps and 20mph limits are covered by the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996, with a standard six week consultation period. If you’ve done informal consultation demonstrating majority support, say so—it de-risks the TRO process.

On procurement, make the point that traffic calming products are available through established frameworks. Many authorities use ESPO or YPO for highway materials, which includes pre-approved suppliers of speed humps, speed tables and other products. This means you can go from funding approval to on-site delivery in months, not years. For a fund that requires spend within tight timescales, that matters enormously.

Developer Contributions: Securing Traffic Calming Through Section 106 and CIL

This is the funding stream I feel is most underutilised, and it frustrates me because the legal framework is crystal clear. NPPF paras 55-58 on planning obligations makes the position unambiguous. Developers must mitigate the impact of their schemes on local infrastructure. A housing development that generates additional traffic that uses existing residential streets creates a legitimate need for traffic calming, and the developer should pay for it.

Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides the hook. Planning obligations must meet three tests: necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind. Traffic calming on routes affected by development traffic passes all three tests, yet time after time I see Section 106 agreements that secure financial contributions for abstract “sustainable transport measures” without specifying interventions.

This is a wasted opportunity. Your planning authority should be identifying specific traffic calming requirements at the pre-application stage and negotiating them into the Section 106 agreement. If a proposed development of 200 homes will generate an estimated 1,400 vehicle movements daily, and the primary access route passes two primary schools and a residential care home, the case for speed humps and raised tables on that route is unanswerable.

The key is quantifying the requirement. Use the DfT’s Transport Analysis Guidance to model the traffic impact. WebTAG software provides standardised methodologies that planning inspectors recognise and will respect. If your modelling shows that development traffic will increase speeds or volumes beyond acceptable thresholds, you’ve established the need for mitigation. Then cost the intervention: typical speed humps installation, including design, TRO, construction and signage costs £3,000-£5,000 per unit. A comprehensive scheme on a 1km route may require 8-10 humps plus associated measures, at a total of £40,000-£60,000. For a development generating millions in profit, this is a tiny and proportionate sum.

CIL is different—it’s a standardised charge per sqm of development, with the revenue pooled and spent on infrastructure provision. CIL is less targeted than Section 106, but it offers flexibility. Your authority’s CIL Regulation 123 list (or Infrastructure Funding Statement under the 2019 regs) should explicitly list traffic calming as a fundable category. Many authorities include “highway improvements” generically, which creates ambiguity about whether traffic calming counts. Be specific: “Traffic calming measures including speed humps, speed tables, chicanes and associated signage on routes affected by development traffic.”

The beauty of CIL is it can fund cumulative impacts. A single 50-home development may not justify a comprehensive traffic calming scheme, but five such developments in the same area certainly do. Your Infrastructure Funding Statement should identify priority routes for traffic calming based on development pipeline analysis, and then allocate CIL revenue accordingly.

I’ve seen this done brilliantly in Cambridgeshire, where the county council’s CIL charging schedule explicitly funds traffic calming in villages that are experiencing development growth. The parish councils—who receive 15-25% of the CIL revenue under the neighbourhood portion rules—have used their allocation to co-fund speed hump schemes that the county delivers. This is collaboration in infrastructure planning at its best.

One technical point that trips many authorities up: the relationship between Section 106 and CIL. Regulation 123 of the CIL Regulations 2010 (as amended) prevents “double dipping” – you can’t fund the same infrastructure via both mechanisms. But you can use them complementarily. Section 106 may secure traffic calming on the immediate development access route, with CIL funding the wider network improvements. Just ensure your Section 106 agreement and Infrastructure Funding Statement are worded precisely to avoid overlap.

The NPPF’s emphasis on sustainable development also provides some leverage. Para 104 requires that “planning policies should provide for attractive and well-designed walking and cycling networks”. Traffic calming is how you deliver that. When you’re negotiating with developers, frame speed humps and speed tables as place-making interventions that will make their development more attractive to buyers, not as punitive measures. The evidence supports this: RTPI and Urban Design Group research shows that homes on traffic-calmed streets command a premium over homes on busy through-routes.

Building the Evidence Base: What Funders Want to See

The success of any funding bid for traffic calming depends on one thing: good evidence. Funders do not want to hear claims from applicants, they want to see data that tells a story. The story must be: this road is a problem, your solution is proportionate and evidence-based, and you can prove that you’ll have an impact if we pay for it.

Start with collision data. Your highway authority’s road safety team can access the DfT STATS19 database which contains details of every collision reported to the police. Analyse five years’ worth of data for your proposed scheme area. How many collisions took place? What were the contributory factors? How fast were the vehicles? If your data shows a cluster of collisions on a particular route, with ‘exceeding speed limit’ or ‘travelling too fast for conditions’ as contributory factors, then you’ve made your safety case for traffic calming.

But don’t stop there. Collisions are the tip of the iceberg. The majority of near misses and intimidating interactions between motor vehicles and vulnerable road users never get reported. So, supplement STATS19 with community reporting. Several authorities have set up online platforms using Commonplace or Widen the Eye for residents to report safety concerns. This qualitative data is gold dust – a heat map of 50 resident reports of ‘cars driving too fast past the school’ is a persuasive argument for speed humps even if you have few collisions.

Traffic speed and volume data is essential. Your highway authority will have access to automatic traffic counters and portable speed detection equipment. Deploy these on your proposed scheme routes to establish baseline conditions. The data you need is 85th percentile speeds (the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles travel), mean speeds and daily traffic volumes. If your 85th percentile speed is 32mph on a road with a 20mph limit, then you’ve proved that the limit alone is not working and physical calming is needed.

Look at before-and-after data from previous schemes, wherever possible. If your authority has installed speed humps on other roads in the past, then analyse the impact they had. TRL’s research on speed humps (published in various reports including TRL Report 312) shows that, in general, speed humps lead to a reduction in mean speeds of 9mph and 85th percentile speeds of 7mph. Collision reductions of 40-60% are not uncommon. If your authority has similar data from a previous scheme, then include it in your funding bid. Local evidence carries more weight than national statistics.

Air quality monitoring should be included, particularly for schemes located in Air Quality Management Areas. There is an unfortunate perception that traffic calming makes air quality worse, due to acceleration and deceleration. The evidence does not support this. Analysis by King’s College London and the Greater London Authority shows that the speed reduction and traffic volume reduction delivered by well-designed schemes typically improves air quality. So, if you’re proposing traffic calming in an AQMA then commission monitoring to establish baseline NO2 and PM10 levels and commit to monitoring after implementation. This will set an environmental baseline and give you data for future bids.

Economic impact assessment is critical for Levelling Up Fund bids. Liaise with your economic development team to establish baseline footfall, dwell times and retail performance in your town centre. British BIDs (Business Improvement Districts) organisation can advise on monitoring methodologies. If you can prove that pedestrian footfall is falling and vehicle traffic is increasing then you’ve found the problem your traffic calming will solve.

Designing for Approval: Technical Considerations That Unlock Funding

The schemes that get turned down by funders are ones that are poorly designed or technically unsound. They won’t fund a scheme that you can’t demonstrably deliver. This means engaging with the design guidance that highway authorities are required to use.

Although dated in parts, the DfT’s Local Transport Note 1/07, Traffic Calming, is still the primary technical reference document. It sets out the design parameters for all the physical calming devices, including speed humps (max 75mm height on 20mph roads), speed tables (75-100mm height with a flat top of 2.5-4m long) and chicanes (minimum 3m width to force single-lane working). Your scheme designs must comply with these standards. Active Travel England and other funders will check.

But, read LTN 1/07 in conjunction with more recent guidance. The DfT circular on Setting Local Speed Limits (01/2013) states that speed limits should be self-enforcing through design. This strengthens the argument for physical calming – a 20mph limit on a wide, straight road will be ignored; the same limit on a road with speed humps at 60-80 metre intervals will be observed. Set out this relationship between signing and physical measures in your bid.

Material specification is more important than many authorities realise. Tarmac speed humps are the cost-effective default but they can generate noise complaints. Rubber speed humps are quieter and easier to install but may be seen as temporary. Sinusoidal profile humps offer the best compromise, delivering effective speed reduction with minimal noise and vibration. TRL’s Traffic Advisory Leaflet 7/20 gives a comparison of the options. Include your chosen product in your designs and justify your choice based on the context of the street.

Drainage is a detail that can trip up schemes if not considered early in the design. Speed humps and raised tables change the flow of surface water on a road. Your design needs to ensure that gullies remain effective and that ponding does not occur. This is especially important on roads with combined sewers where surface water capacity is limited. Engage your drainage authority early – in two-tier areas, this may be the county council or a water company. A letter confirming that your scheme is compatible with existing drainage infrastructure will support your bid.

Emergency service access is the objection you will encounter most. Preempt it. The Chief Fire Officers Association (now the National Fire Chiefs Council) has published a statement confirming that modern fire appliances can cross speed humps without significant delay. Ambulance trusts have issued similar statements that the safety benefits of traffic calming outweigh any marginal time impacts. Include these statements in your consultation materials and funding bids. Better still, invite your local fire station to test your proposed hump profiles – a letter from the watch manager confirming that access is satisfactory is gold-plated evidence.

Bus operators are another stakeholder whose early buy-in can make or break schemes. Speed humps cause discomfort for standing passengers and may increase journey times marginally. Engage with operators early and consider design modifications on bus routes – speed cushions rather than full-width humps, or sinusoidal profiles that reduce vertical acceleration. Confederation of Passenger Transport UK has published guidance on bus-friendly traffic calming. If you can secure operator support, or at least neutrality, then you’ve defused a major objection.

Case Studies: Learning from Successful Schemes

Practical examples are more valuable than theory, so I’ll draw out three schemes that I believe best demonstrate best practice in securing funding and delivering impact.

Levenshulme, Manchester – the neighbourhood-scale traffic calming

This south Manchester suburb used £1.5 million of Active Travel Fund to deliver a package of traffic calming measures as part of a low-traffic neighbourhood. The core interventions were speed humps, raised tables and modal filters across a 2km² residential area. The bid succeeded because it made the case for these measures in the context of a network, illustrating how they would create safe cycling routes to three secondary schools and the local high street. Post-implementation monitoring showed a 57% reduction in traffic volumes on internal streets, 8mph reduction in mean speeds and a 22% increase in cycling. The scheme has since been rolled out into additional neighbourhoods using developer contributions from nearby housing developments, showing how different funding streams can be combined.

Frome, Somerset – using traffic calming to underpin town centre regeneration

This market town used Levelling Up Fund money (£9.8 million) to regenerate the town centre with traffic calming as the foundation. The scheme installed raised tables at every junction in the central area, creating a continuous ‘priority’ surface for pedestrians. Speed humps on approach roads reinforced the 20mph limit. The economic impact has been striking – footfall up 18%, retail vacancy rates down from 14% to 8% and three new independent businesses opened in the first year. The town council’s bid made the case that traffic calming was the intervention that would make this public realm investment pay off, arguing that people will not use improved spaces if they’re intimidated by fast-moving traffic. The funding panel agreed.

Cambridgeshire County Council’s Village Speed Hump Programme

This is not a single scheme but a strategic use of developer contributions. The county identified 30 villages across the county that were experiencing development pressure and then conducted speed surveys on main streets. Where speeds were found to exceed 24mph (the limit at which 20mph speed limits become meaningless) then they used Section 106 contributions to install speed hump schemes. To date, over five years, they have delivered traffic calming in 18 villages, all funded through developer money. The key was having a clear policy framework – the county’s Local Transport Plan contains a statement that developments generating traffic through villages with speed compliance issues must fund mitigation. This gave planning officers the clout to extract contributions.

Five Fatal Flaws of Traffic Calming Funding Bids – And How to Fix Them

It’s something I’ve seen far too often. A fantastic traffic calming scheme that would improve safety, make streets more liveable and complement active travel investment is defeated on an avoidable technicality. Often it’s the funding bid that lets the side down. Here are five common errors (we might call them Fatal Flaws) that I’ve seen. You can avoid them with a little extra attention and you’ll significantly improve the chances of your funding being successful:

Insufficient consultation. Funders like to see evidence that the local community wants your scheme and have had their say. That’s fine. But they also want to see that you’ve listened to any objections and given serious consideration to them. “90% of those consulted were in favour of the scheme, we did consult for eight weeks and here are some bits of feedback from people who don’t live in the area we are funding.” Sounds a bit thin, doesn’t it? Consultation is not a tick-box exercise. Keep a proper record of all feedback received and your response to it. If residents complained about displacement of traffic on to parallel routes then make it clear in your bid how your monitoring plan will identify whether or not displacement is occurring and what measures you will put in place to mitigate this should the need arise.

Unclear costings. “The total funding request is around £100,000 to deliver a series of traffic calming measures in the area” won’t do. The funders want to know what you are going to do and it with the money. Itemise your costings: design and professional fees; cost of a TRO; material and installation costs; signage and road markings; project management and administration; contingency. Do the sums using your authority’s schedule of rates, or ask for quotes from framework suppliers. The last thing a funder wants to hear is that you have underspent because you haven’t cost things carefully.

Neglect of maintenance.  Traffic calming products are not maintenance-free. Speed humps decay, road markings wear out and signs get damaged or stolen. If your traffic calming scheme is being funded by CIL or Section 106, check that there is revenue funding in the pipeline for maintenance. Your bid should set out whole-life costs and demonstrate that ongoing maintenance is going to be affordable. Your project officer needs to liaise with highways maintenance to make sure that they have the resources to maintain your scheme, or that funding will be provided to contract the maintenance out to someone else. Nobody wants a traffic calming scheme that looks shabby after two years and reflects badly on the funding body.

Exaggerating the benefits. Traffic calming will reduce speeds and improve safety, but it will not create a collision-free environment or turn your residents into cyclists and pedestrians. Don’t overplay it. Make sure your claims about the benefits of your scheme are evidence-based. Where research evidence suggests a 40% reduction in collisions then that’s what you put in your bid – 40% reduction, not 70%. Funders are nothing if not meticulous and you don’t want to be accused of exaggerating claims when you’re asking them for more funding next year.

Disregard for equalities. The Equality Act 2010 is quite clear. Public authorities have a duty to consider the impact of their activities and policies on people who share the characteristics protected by the Act. Traffic calming has a differential impact on different groups. Speed humps and raised tables cause discomfort for people with certain mobility impairments and medical conditions that affect how their bodies deal with vibration. Slower traffic speeds benefit disabled and less-mobile pedestrians, wheelchair users and people with pushchairs. Your Equality Impact Assessment must acknowledge these trade-offs and explain how your design decisions minimise negative impacts. Sinusoidal humps rather than sharp-edged profiles, for example, cause less vibration.

How to Think Big (About Traffic Calming)

But it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, it’s what keeps me getting up in the morning and fighting the good fight. Traffic calming has never been more fundable. The policy landscape is, for once, strongly supportive of interventions of this kind. From the DfT’s Gear Change strategy to DLUHC’s Manifesto commitment to place-making and levelling up, the messages from Government actively promote the development of attractive, liveable communities. And the funding streams exist and are significant. Much more important, though, the evidence base for the effectiveness of traffic calming is overwhelming.

What’s needed now is the strategic thinking. Stop thinking of traffic calming as a response to complaints about speeding traffic. Instead, position it as the enabling infrastructure for active travel, economic regeneration and liveable communities. Include it as a key intervention in your Local Transport Plan. Identify priority routes based on collision data and evidence of development pressure and active travel potential. Cost the programme and map it against potential funding opportunities.

When Active Travel England come to announce the next round of funding, you should be ready to submit shovel-ready schemes that use traffic calming to create coherent networks that complement and enhance your active travel programme. When developers submit planning applications, your planning officers should have clear policies on requiring contributions towards traffic calming measures. When the next iteration of the Levelling Up Fund opens for bids, your town centre regeneration bid should be positioning speed humps and raised tables as a foundation stone of the area’s transformation.

The money is there. The policy environment is there. The evidence is there. All that’s missing now is the vision to link those humble traffic calming products – those speed humps and speed tables – to the strategic outcomes that funders really care about. Do that and you’ll unlock resources that can transform your streets, your communities, and – ultimately – the safety and liveability of your entire area.

This is not just about slowing cars. It’s about building places where people choose to walk, cycle and spend time. Streets where children play, where older people feel safe crossing, where businesses thrive because people actually want to be there. Traffic calming is the tool that can make all of this possible. Now go and fund it properly.