If the whole of Dorset adopted a 20mph speed limit it would make our streets quieter for residents and safer for children.

That's the view of those in favour of campaign launched to call upon the Government to demand 20mph as an emergency national urban limit.

The campaign, named 'lower the baseline', has been supported by leading doctors who want there to be less of a strain on the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.

These doctors, backed by the group 20's Plenty For Us, want the national speed limit reduced from 30mph to 20mph which they believe will ease the pressure on the NHS by reducing road traffic accidents that lead to people requiring medical attention.

Rod King MBE, founder and campaign director of 20's Plenty For Us, said: "It is in the Government’s power and interest to change all 30mph limits to 20mph by making appropriate public announcements, without any need to change road signs.

"The precedent already exists to change national speed limits in an emergency. The Government changed national speed limits in the 1974 fuel crisis to save petrol and it must do this in the 2020 Covid-19 crisis to save lives.

"This move will match the mood all of us to do everything possible for our NHS resources and staff.”

Campaigners are urging the Government to answer their call to action and to protect the NHS from having to treat preventable road casualties and to keep resources and beds free for patients infected by Covid-19.

They consider setting a national 20mph speed limit to be an affordable, practical and cost-effective step that the Government is able to take to help the NHS and support doctors at this critical time.

The reduced speed limit would also protect those living in urban areas and a policy for a national 20mph policy is already underway in Wales.

Dr Jon Orrell, GP at Royal Crescent Surgery in Weymouth, said: "I am very much in favour of a 20mph speed limit in all residential areas.

"If the whole of Dorset adopted such an approach it would make our streets quieter for residents and safer for children."

Dr Robert Hughes, from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, along with 109 other doctors wrote in the Times last month: "Each month were are nearly 3,000 road traffic collision-related admissions to NHS hospitals in England alone.

"Lowering and enforcing speed limits would reduce the frequency and severity of road traffic collisions."