Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer has pledged to meet worried residents to discuss their concerns over speed limits.

The Minister made the commitment after a request by MHK Bill Shimmins (Middle) in the House of Keys last week.

Mr Shimmins has repeatedly raised concerns some of his constituents have about speed in their area.

Mr Harmer underlined that decisions on speed limits were evidence-based rather than policy driven and that any requests for changes were set against relevant criteria.

Mr Shimmins said: ’A number of my constituents who are concerned about the speed limits where they live, outside their homes, feel that they are not being listened to?’

He asked Mr Harmer if he would meet those constituents and look at the evidence. The minister agreed.

The role of the consultation raised concerns for another MHK, though.

Clare Bettison (Douglas East) asked Mr Harmer if he could ’give reassurance that when the consultation process is engaged with, there is expectation management undertaken within that, that if the evidence does still clearly point to one thing then it is likely that will be the outcome’.

Evidence

Mr Harmer said: ’The key thing is evidence but obviously we have a process to go through and we will consult, and as part of that consultation more evidence may come up and so it is important to do that.’

Last month Mr Shimmins voted against the government’s new road safety strategy, which he described as ’fatally flawed’ as it did not take a tough enough approach to cutting speeds.

He argued that the number of country lanes which had no speed limit created a culture of ’aggressive and selfish’ driving.

And he accused the government of being reluctant to reduce speed limits in residential areas because it could slow down traffic flow.

He has advocated 20mph speed limits for motorists in urban areas.