The pavement parking bans and 20mph zones coming to roads near you 

And right now, two policies in particular are dividing local politicians: 20mph speed limits and pavement parking bans.

Here is what could change, and what it would mean for you.

How 20mph zones work

Nearly 70 out of 154 English councils have already committed to introducing 20mph limits in areas where people live and work, according to the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign group.

Proponents cite several benefits, the most significant of which is road safety.

Data from Transport for London shows a 25 per cent reduction in road collisions between 2020 and 2022 following the introduction of such limits, while the number of children killed in accidents has halved.

Living Streets, a pedestrian charity, says 20mph limits have almost no impact on journey times, and two in three people support them.

Government data found that the Welsh rollout saw mean speeds drop by 2.5mph – and by up to 6mph on faster roads – without any police enforcement in the first six months.

In London, 19 boroughs, including Camden, Hackney, Islington and Wandsworth, already operate 20mph limits on most of the roads they control.

Wales went further in September 2023, making 20mph the national default speed limit on lit roads – the first country in the UK to do so. Scotland has committed to doing the same across all its councils.

In England, it is patchier. Councils can set their own limits on most local roads and whether they choose to do so depends heavily on local priorities.

Where they are expanding — and where they could be rolled back

Many areas are continuing to push ahead. Leicester City Council has been expanding 20mph zones as part of a goal for them to cover 80 per cent of the city’s streets.

Enfield Council is introducing 20mph limits on residential roads and in town centres following a consultation last year.

Essex County Council recently closed a Safer Speeds consultation proposing more 20mph roads. It comes after the county recorded 60 road deaths in 2025, the highest level in a decade.

Sunderland City Council has approved a £10.9m road improvement programme, part of which funds more 20mph zones in residential areas.

But tomorrow’s results could put the brakes on expansion elsewhere.

Shadow transport secretary Richard Holden vowed in April that Conservative-led councils would end “blanket limits that slow whole towns to a crawl”, describing 20mph as the “national speed of bureaucracy.”

In Wales, Reform UK has made scrapping the default 20mph limit a central Senedd election pledge, with Welsh leader Dan Thomas describing the policy as a “war on motorists”, and it is likely they would seek to extend this across England too.

Suffolk currently has some 20mph limits and is forecast to see Reform gains, according to polling aggregator PollCheck, making active rollback a possibility.

And, if Reform takes control in Essex, the Safer Speeds strategy could well be scrapped before a single scheme is delivered.

On the Isle of Wight, the Lib Dem-led council approved a 20mph programme for three to five years in January 2025 – but the island is forecast to fall to Reform. Some orders already legally in force cannot easily be reversed, but anything in the pipeline would be vulnerable.

How pavement parking bans work

New powers for councils to crack down on pavement parking are on their way.

Under the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act, councils outside London are gaining the ability to ban pavement parking in their areas for the first time.

Parking on pavements has been banned in London since 1974, but other parts of the UK have been slower to adopt this rule.

Outside London, pavement parking has been largely a matter of discretion. Councils could act where yellow lines or traffic regulation orders were already in place, but most had no general power to ban it outright.

Scotland changed that in December 2023, introducing a national ban. England is now following with a devolved version, giving local transport authorities the power to impose their own prohibitions.

But there is a catch. Analysis of Scottish Government data shows that in the first full year of Scotland’s ban, many councils issued zero pavement parking fines.

Data for 2024/25 show Edinburgh issued 4,600 fines and Dundee 2,400, while Glasgow — Scotland’s largest city — issued just 586. Fife, Scotland’s third largest local authority, issued zero, as did Inverclyde and South Lanarkshire.

The Department for Transport’s own research found that 92 per cent of English councils said pavement parking was a problem in their area.

And 41 per cent of individuals said they would leave home more often if it were addressed – a figure that rises sharply among disabled people and those with pushchairs.

England’s new powers are coming – but when and whether councils will use them remains uncertain.

The Government has said it will lay the secondary legislation enabling enforcement “in due course” but has not given a specific timetable.

What this means for you

Who runs your council after Thursday will shape whether these policies arrive on your street – or potentially get rolled back.

Labour and Green-led councils have generally expanded 20mph zones and taken a stricter approach to parking enforcement.

A Conservative or Reform administration appears more likely to pause or reverse the 20mph expansion and leave the new pavement parking powers unused, at least in the short term.

On pavement parking specifically, the picture is more uncertain regardless of who wins.
England’s new enforcement powers are coming, but the Government has not given a timetable for the secondary legislation needed to bring them into force.