Every private citizen is entitled to pursue a campaign to address an issue on which they feel motivated.

Cllr Conlon is well within his rights to pursue his North Yorkshire-wide “20’s Plenty” campaign as a private individual, and I wish good luck to him in that capacity, even though I personally feel that it’s ridiculous.

However, Malton Town Council has rejected his motion to adopt this blanket measure as council policy, preferring instead to implement lower speed limits on specific areas such as near schools and on certain residential roads. This must surely mean that he may not promote the “blanket” campaign with the implied authority of his position of Mayor, or even MTC Councillor, or represent that the strategy is MTC-supported, implied or otherwise.

That means, for example, that using the MTC marquee stand in the Market Place as a platform to push his message and gather signatures surely cannot be allowed.

According to records, Mayor Conlon recently proposed that MTC should lobby York Council to support this personal campaign. Lobbying another council seems a bizarre strategy, especially to support a bee in the Mayor’s personal bonnet, but having proposed the motion and voted on it, using his casting vote to push it through on a tied vote seems like an abuse of position.

As to the proposal itself: this measure is now in place in Wales, and widely hated by the majority. The Welsh Labour Government’s own analysis finds that these measures will cost up to £9billion in lost business due to wasted time over the next 30 years, and the impact on tourism is yet to be assessed, but is certainly not positive so far. Has Mr Conlon conducted any similar research?

David Hoggard Malton