Last month the Department for Transport released the latest road casualty figures, and they make for grim reading.

Death and injury on our roads increased by six per cent year-on-year. The most vulnerable people are bearing the brunt of that rise: pedestrian deaths rose by 12 per cent, and almost all of that increase was among people aged 60 and over.

In the meantime the level of walking in the UK is in major, long-term decline – since 1995 the amount of walking we do has dropped by 30 per cent and we have one of the lowest levels of children walking to school in Europe.

With many hundreds of new homes being built in Kendal over the next few years, Cumbria County Council has said we need to shift five per cent of car journeys to more sustainable modes like walking, if Kendal is to avoid even greater congestion than now.

Soon Kendal Town Council will decide whether Kendal should become Cumbria’s first 20mph town. Increasing walking is the only way we can keep traffic moving in town – and 20mph is the only credible, affordable way to achieve this change.

At a stroke, the town council could start a process that would reduce road danger (RoSPA says a 1mph reduction in average speed could reduce collisions by around six per cent), encourage walking (when Bristol went 20mph, walking increased by between 10 per cent and 36 per cent) and keep Kendal traffic moving.

If our councillors have an ounce of compassion and a thimbleful of common sense, they’ll go for it.

This will be a long haul – once the town council adopts it, we then have to persuade the county council to actually pay for it.

It’s not expensive. The whole town could be done for a one-off sum of £90,000 to £150,000 – a fraction of what CCC is already spending trying to push even more traffic through Kendal’s most congested junctions.

For those who are still undecided, 20’s Plenty for Kendal says this: far from slowing you down, 20mph will keep traffic flowing.

Journey times will hardly change at all.

There won’t be a single new speed bump in town. It isn’t a cash-cow for the council or police. It will reduce pollution and it’ll help you get a bit more active if you want to.

If Kendal becomes Cumbria’s first town to go 20, sensible motorists will hardly notice the difference.

If it doesn’t, brace yourself for more traffic jams, more pollution and yet more collisions and injuries.

Rory Black, Alastair Dunn and Paul Holdsworth

20’s Plenty for Kendal