Calls are being made to introduce more low-speed traffic zones across Dorset.

Cllr Sherry Jespersen says the issue is the one which bugs more residents than virtually anything else and has asked for Dorset to lead the way in its approach.

"Most of our residents say it is the most important issue where they live – that it doesn't feel safe or healthy because of the traffic – and that's the nub of the thing.

"We need to have a wider discussion about what we are going to do about that in the future…I would like to see Dorset Council be really quite brave and innovative about this and say we will pioneer some new approaches to traffic management and safer communities," she said.

Ideas tried elsewhere involve designing, or re-designing roads, so that traffic is forced to slow down, avoiding the need for enforcement.

Rural Dorchester area councillor Roland Tarr also backed looking for more measures to reduce speed – arguing that every mile knocked off average speeds had the potential to save lives.

"All of our neighbours, like the New Forest, Bristol and Somerset are going for lower limits. It doesn't matter if the police can't enforce them all because lower limits mean lower speeds and every mile an hour we reduce speeds reduces accidents and that has massive cost implications for the hospital services in this country with the millions of pounds spent on repairing people after accidents," he said.

He said that his experience was that where lower limits were in place people generally respected them and there was evidence that average speeds were kept down.

Highways portfolio holder Cllr Ray Bryan said he was very aware of the need for action in some towns and villages where there was disregard for local speed limits.

"My concern, in my conversations with the police, is that they are concerned about how they are going to deal with that.

"We can introduce a speed limit but we also need to find a way of how it can be enforced," he said.

The place and resources overview committee heard that Dorset was holding off reviewing its own approach to more widespread 20mph zones until the Government had concluded a review it is currently working on.