Thursday September 4th 2025
B792 in West Lothian
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
The main roads cutting through the village of Blackburn will see their speed limits reduced to 20mph in 2027 if a trial is successful.
The village’s proximity to Bathgate saw it included in the first tier of a county wide roll-out of speed reduction measures, as part of Scottish Government plans.
Chair of the Whitburn and Blackburn Local Area Committee, Councillor George Paul welcomed the plans but warned “ the boy racers won’t be happy”.
The major change to the community will see the main arterial roads running east to west- from Seasfield to Whitburn- and south to north from Blackburn up to Bathgate made into 20mph zones.
In practical terms both routes are busy with traffic on a daily basis and have feeder roads into housing schemes and business areas running off them. Large parts of both routes are also lined with private and council housing with driveway access and footpaths.
The change will also be formalised in residential housing areas around the edge of the village. Existing residential streets are already advisory 20mph.
During the 18 month trial period these changes will be temporary and drivers can feed back to the council through a specially set up webpage. A formal decision will likely be taken by Autumn 2027.
Community representatives from Greenrigg told the meeting that the advisory 20mph sign in their village “does have an effect”, with the majority of drivers slowing down.
Greenrigg will be in the third and final tier of the roll-out two to three years from now. The rest of Whitburn will be in the second tier of the roll-out.
Councillor Mary Dickson said the evidence that the number of deaths and injuries is cut dramatically by reducing the speed limit to 20mph made it “welcome and worthwhile”.
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