A BLANKET 20 miles per hour speed limit came into force across a city centre yesterday.

Motorists using 80 streets and roads in the centre of Sunderland were faced with the newly imposed restrictions from noon.

The cover came off 100 signs in streets within the inner ring road, mounted in recent weeks after Sunderland council took out a traffic order to introduce the wholesale 20-mph limit.

Believed to be the first introduced over such a wide area of a city centre within the North-East, the regulations were introduced following a year of consideration by the city council and despite opposition from motorists.

It takes advantage of Government legislation introduced in April last year which gives local authorities powers to impose blanket 20-mph limits without the back-up of traffic calming measures, like speed humps.

City councillors backed the idea and there were no objections from traders and the business community.

The council said the order was introduced to make the city centre "a more comfortable place" for pedestrians.

City traffic manager Charles Thompson said just a small reduction in speed could have a marked effect on the accident rate.

The likelihood of a crash proving fatal decreases markedly at speeds below 30mph.

"We know speeds were not much higher than that in most of the streets anyway, and I don't suppose people using them will notice much difference.

"But, even a reduction of a couple of miles per hour tends to bring quite good benefits in road safety.

"The city centre is a place where a lot of people tend to be going round doing their business on foot and we want them to feel safer and more secure.

"We feel these signs may just influence motorists and persuade them to drive that little bit slower."

Mr Thompson said the police have backed the introduction of the new limit, and its progress will be monitored to assess its success, but he does not expect anything "can go wrong".