Former Welsh minister takes speed limit and active travel message down under

Emily Price

Former deputy minister for climate change Lee Waters has spent the summer down under advising Australian politicians on how they can follow Wales’ lead on transport reforms.

The man who was instrumental in implementing Wales’ 20mph default speed limit quit his ministerial position earlier this year when Vaughan Gething took over from Mark Drakeford as First Minister.

After stepping down, he was recognised as an “unsung hero” in the ENDS Report Power List for his contribution to environmental causes.

Over the Senedd recess, the Llanelli MS was invited to take part in a number of events giving advice on how Australia can reach net zero by 2050 – a target which government ministers in Wales also hope to achieve.

He met with several prominent figures including Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore, former New South Wales Transport and Planning Minister, Rob Stokes and Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen.

Mr Waters also met with Wallabies flanker David Pocock who is now a senator.

He told Australian politicians that “now is the time to follow through the evidence with action” when it comes to climate change.

Change

In a special presentation to the Australian Parliament Mr Waters explained how a mode shift to active travel could help the country meet its climate emissions reduction targets.

The Senedd politician opened his speech by encouraging ministers to break their carbon targets into five year cycles as the Welsh Government has done.

He said: “We know from our advisers that to get to 2050 we have to make rapid change in the next ten years. In fact in the next ten years we need to make deeper cuts than we have made in the whole course of the last 30 years put together which is mind bowing.”

Mr Waters said the first carbon budget was achieved “with ease” by closing down coal-fired power stations – but “that can’t be done twice”.

He said that Wales’ current carbon budget is “doable” but the one after that in 2026 will be a “toughie”.

In terms of transport, Mr Waters said that there are things the Australian government can do immediately – the most effective being active travel investment – particularly in urban areas.

The former transport minister said: “We talk a lot about how difficult it is to change transport behaviour – Australia is a vast country. But most journeys are not like that. Most journeys are under five miles. In the UK, 10 per cent of journeys are under one mile.

“Those of the kind of journey you can shift with relative ease with the right infrastructure and behaviour change programmes which will bring you both an immediate carbon benefit, but all sorts of other benefits around social equity, mental wellbeing and general health.”

Easy

Mr Waters, a keen cyclist himself, said that active travel shouldn’t be framed by politicians a “nice to do” at the weekend, but as a day to day mode of transport. 

He said: “People will do what’s easy. If we simply appeal to people to be green hero or tree huggers – we will fail. What we need to do is make it easy. For 70 years we’ve made jumping into a car the easiest way of getting around.”

In Wales, the government put the breaks on all of its transport schemes in order to test them against its climate targets.

Many of the projects had been several years in the making and were created at a time when policy priorities were different.

An independent roads review was set up which recommended tougher tests for deciding when new roads are the right answer.

Of the fifty transport projects awaiting the green light, the Welsh Government cancelled all but 15 of them.

Mr Waters told the Australian Parliament that the case for many of the schemes “just didn’t stack up”.

One of the project cancelled was the controversial Flintshire Red Route would have seen a £350m stretch of two-way dual carriageway which would have destroyed ancient woodland.

Lee Waters speaks to Parliament on Transforming Welsh Transport 19.8.24 from WeRideAustralia on Vimeo.

Congestion

But the scheme’s own business case showed that in 15 years time the congestion levels would be back up to where they are now.

The former transport minister said: “You can’t build your way out of congestion because when you build more capacity you generate more demand.

“We are seeing this in schemes right across Australia where a huge amount of money has been put in to ease congestion and reduce bottlenecks – but very quickly fill back up with traffic again.”

Mr Waters explained that the carbon used to build new roads is often not counted in government formulas despite the steel and concrete used being a huge contributor to carbon.

In order to make up for the carbon used to build one medium cost road, 2,700 drivers would have to give up their cars for ten years.

The former deputy minister said that questioning key assumptions isn’t popular – and that’s why political leadership is required.

He said: “Given the climate emergency the planet is now facing – this is a time for political capital to be spent because we will not be forgiven by future generations knowing what we know about the evidence if we fail to act.

“The reaction to the roads review was a lot tamer than I was expecting. What wasn’t tame was the reaction to lowering speeds in urban areas.”

Mr Waters faced backlash from the public following the roll out of the 20mph default speed limit on restricted roads in Wales last year.

Since the 1930’s in the UK the default speed limit in urban areas has been 30mph.

20mph 

Mr Waters oversaw a plan to shift the default in Wales to 20mph allowing councils to make the case for keeping some roads at 30mph where it makes sense.

Where similar policies have been rolled out in London and Edinburgh, data has shown a 40 per cent reduction in road casualties.

The new default proved unpopular with the Welsh public and a record breaking Senedd petition calling for the policy to be axed gained almost half a million signatures.

Mr Waters said: “We are almost a year into the speed limit and there has been a lot of protests – but the quiet majority are simply getting on with it and average speeds are down. But there has been lot of friction – a lot of it directed at me.”

Australian politicians could be heard giggling as the former transport minister showed some examples of his 20mph “fan base” which included a Daily Mail article branding the his policy “insane” and graffiti on his constituency office labelling him “scum”.

He said: “It’s gets to the point where you do need some humour to get through this – but the data is doing exactly what we thought it would do.”

Newly published figures for the first six months of the 20mph policy shows overall casualties in Wales are lower than they were during Covid, making it “worth the grief”, Mr Waters said.

Swansea University’s psychology department carried out a study on attitudes and the doubles standards the public have after 70 years of normalising behaviour around the use of cars.

The research, which is about to be repeated in Australia, asked a sample of 2000 a series of questions including whether they agreed that people shouldn’t smoke in highly populated areas – 75 per cent said they agreed.

Asked whether people shouldn’t be able to drive in highly populated areas where others have to breath in the fumes – on 17 per cent agreed.

Deaths

Mr Waters said: “We accept when it comes to cars a set of deaths that we would not accept if it was on ferries or trains or busses. We’ve normalised it. We shrug our shoulders, it’s the price of doing business – and it’s outrageous.

“Because of the environment we are in and the attitudes of our peers we now accept a set of adverse consequences and a set of attitudes that we shouldn’t and we wouldn’t in any other walk of life.

“And politically that does make changes to transport particularly uncomfortable and difficult to do. But if we don’t tackle transport emissions, we will not hit our carbon budgets, and if we don’t hit our carbon budgets, we won’t get to net zero.

“When scientists are using words like “catastrophic climate change’ then we must act.

“The message from Wales is, it can be done. It’s not easy, it’s not comfortable but once you’ve done it the world moves on and the sky doesn’t fall in.”