Road Safety Commissioner pledges to make West Midlands roads safer

Last month, NHS doctor Mat MacDonald took up the role, tasked with helping make the roads across the region safer following a series of collisions which had led to fatalities and serious injuries.

He, along with new Active Travel Commissioner Beccy Marston, will work with the West Midlands Combined Authority’s new Transport Taskforce, Transport for West Midlands and other agencies.

The Taskforce will help shape policy and advise the Mayor Richard Parker and partners.

Mr MacDonald was previously the chair of Better Streets for Birmingham and got involved based on his own concerns about safety on the roads.

He said: “This issue is particularly close to my heart for many reasons.

“When I first came to this city in 2019, I felt very angry that I couldn’t simply walk down the street with my kids without feeling that overwhelming sense of anxiety that something really terrible is going to happen to them.

“Through the campaign work I’ve undertaken almost in response to that, I’ve had the incredibly humbling privilege of meeting people for whom that fear and anxiety has become a reality because they have lost someone – sometimes a child.

“I don’t think there is any parent around who can’t relate to either the anxiety or feel an incredible amount of sympathy for those who have suffered these losses.

“I want to take this role on because I want to give those families a voice at the table. When you speak to them, the common theme that comes through is they want simply for no-one else to have to endure what they’ve had to go through.

“I think it’s really powerful that even in the midst of that loss and anguish, they want positive change to come on our streets to prevent other people having to suffer their torment.

“I am here in order to do everything we can possible to allocate the resources we have at the authority to reduce the number of people who have been killed or injured on our region’s roles.

“I think it will not only be of obvious benefit to families who have to suffer losses as a consequence but a massive benefit for everyone to be able to travel more safely and to live within communities where anxiety about letting our children play on the streets or meeting each other for a chat on the road is less prevalent.

“Communities that feel safer will be much more pleasant places to live and they will be places where people want to make their lives, start businesses and send their kids to school and that’s the sort of region we want to build if we are to realise potential.”

Both commissioner roles will see them work for one day a week and be paid an honorarium of £200 per day.

When Mr Parker announced the new roles back in November, it prompted criticism from people – including Better Streets for Birmingham – who were concerned it was a downgrade from the previous role which was a three-day a week job.

Adam Tranter was the previous cycling and walking commissioner but he decided to step down from the role when Mr Parker was elected in May last year, saying he wanted to let the new administration “develop their own plans”.

But Mat said: “At the time these roles were initially constituted, there was a great deal of reasonable and passionate criticism because people felt in some way the position was being undermined.

“Previously we had Adam Tranter on a three-day a week post here and people felt that by creating two separate roles on one day a week each, that role was somehow going to be diluted.

“I very much understand where all of that came from. I know Mayor Parker has reflected on that feedback and has given reassurance that if Beccy Marston or I feel our positions are under-resourced or we feel we need more, he is very happy to review that process going forward.

“Mayor Parker has been in post for just a few months, he has obviously got a new system about how he wants to form policy and he wants to bring in as much expertise and insight and innovation from across the board as he can to help aid that process.

“That’s why he has come up with a system whereby you have two different commissioners and a panel of experts in a taskforce which draws in people from as broad a range of disciplines as engineering, campaigning, education, academia so there is a real chance of fresh perspective being brought into the policy making process which will help drive the change we really need to see across the region.

“He’s come into post, put a new system into place and it’s not unreasonable there has been some criticism of how that might work but the time now is to give that system an honest crack of the whip and work as hard as we can to make it function in the way he envisaged.

“If it doesn’t, he’s committed to reviewing it and will be very flexible with that but for now we need to get on with the job in hand.”