Welsh council approves reversal of 20mph roads
Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter
Councillors have backed proposals to reverse 20mph speed limits on 52 roads following a public consultation.
Wrexham council’s Executive Board was asked to rule on the matter due to the legal liability of increasing speed limits after the Welsh Government issued a blanket policy to change restricted roads to 20mph in September 2023.
Nationally a 500,000 name petition was handed in to the Welsh Government challenging the policy. Afterwards it offered local authorities the chance to consult with residents to reverse roads back to 30mph where there was a demand for it.
Through December and January Wrexham County Borough Council carried out a public consultation, with 93% of public responses in favour of restoring 30mph speed limits on 52 roads.
Lobbying
“We’ve done this very carefully in line with Welsh Government guidance,” said Wrexham council’s deputy leader David Bithell. “We have had lots and lots of people lobbying the local authority and elected members to go back to 30mph, we’ve also had people lobbying us to retain 20mph limits as well.
“We’ve had lots of representation from UK Cycling, 20s Plenty, all those organisations who want to retain speeds at 20mph.
“So we’ve taken a careful, measured approach to make sure that everybody is satisfied that the safety and risks are mitigated.before we introduce changes to speed limits.
“This process is not our doing. As a local authority we are picking up the pieces of what has been implemented by Welsh Government. But we have been working closely with the Cabinet Secretary to try to put the wrong right.
“It’s here today because Chief Officer for Environment and Technical Darren Williams has the delegated authority to change the speed limit. but it’s really important that we take collective responsibility as an Executive Board.”
Accidents
One reason for the desire to take collective responsibility is the legal liability over increasing speeds should there be an accident on the roads.
Contrary to some reports, Wrexham Council has been given no legal immunity from liability from Welsh Government in making these changes – which are classed as local speed limits leaving the council unwilling to put the decision in one person’s hands.
“We’ve not had any correspondence from Welsh Government to excuse local authorities of liability,” said Cllr Bithell. “It is down to the local authority.
“We will work with Go Safe with a target date of May 2025 to change the speeds back. There may also be other roads to consider and we will do that carefully and where appropriate.”
The plans were supported across the chamber.
“It’s been a very contentious issue,” said Cllr Rob Walsh. “The changes can’t come quick enough for many motorists and people in Wrexham. There will be some residents who are very nervous about this though. This proposal’s commitment to continue to assess roads in future is a welcome inclusion.
Questions
Cllr Marc Jones, leader of the Plaid Cymru group, added: “I’m broadly supportive of this move. The Welsh Government has questions to answer over this. They got it wrong and they are putting it right but we need to make sure they put it right completely.”
Labour group leader Cllr Dana Davies said: “Talking about the risk element, going from 40mph to 20mph people would brake harder, so changing back to 30mph on those roads supports road safety and reduces community risk.”
Despite the approval of Executive Board, the process will now go through further consultation with communities to ensure the changes are made safely and are communicated broadly.
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There never was a blanket policy.
Absolutely right, the guidance was simply interpreted differently by different local authorities. Swansea chose to exempt around 10% of it’s restricted roads but Conwy only did this with around 0.6%.
The position in Wrexham is entirely of the councils own making in that they never were bothered to make use of the exemptions regime that was available. Now they will be reverting some roads or stretches of roads that should never be 30mph but under this contrived consultation those that responded with concerns over particular stretches of road will be over ruled by including in the yes camp those that just agreed yes change them all back to 30mph without any consideration of those problematic zones.
Then data suggests that the collision and death rates have deceased by 23% and 100 people in a year.
I hope no one is injured on the the roads that are changed back.
Think Caergwrle…there will be sacrifices…
They had the power to do this before the implementation, and had the power to revert after.
Now the entitlement manbabies and womanbabies who have no regard for any speed limits will just sit 1 meter from your backside looking furious while you are doing 30mph not 20mph.
Does this not prove the Welsh government actions on 20 MPH limits were not well thought out and due diligence was not carried out, both ministers involved in this should be sacked now. A lot of public money was wasted on this ill thought out policy. Issues like this cannot be implemented without enforcement. Yesterday I saw a mobile speed camera just after a national speed limit sight on the A465 dual carriageway near Glyn Neath. Would this have been better deployed in a 20 MPH zone
Labour just love frittering away the Public Purse on nefarious woke projects. And this was just one of them. The money would have been better spent filling in the caverns better known as potholes, and re-surfacing the disgusting state of Welsh roads.
At least one Council with some common sense.
Can you explain to me how this is common sense? Many of these stretches of road could have been exempted during the pre-introduction stage last year in the same way that they were in my own council (Powys) but Wrexham chose not to do that. They now face a legal jeopardy that didnt exist before and motorists have been inconvenienced leading to additional opposition to a measure that is already saving lives, reducing serious injuries and saving motorists money in reduced insurance costs.
Unless it’s outside schools/nurseries/hospitals etc, 20 mph should never have been introduced in the first place. It was a Labour knee-jerk idea, ill thought out and ill implemented & total waste of Public money. Motorists are penalised enough as it is for owning a vehicle. The millions upon millions upon millions of Public Pounds cost to roll out ( and don’t forget, roll back again ) would have been FAR better off spent elsewhere, like, actually improving the roads we all ready have in the first place. There’s enough cameras, enough signage, enough speed bumps, and enough stealth mobile cameras… Read more »
They were outside schools and it just shows you never paid attention to them.
And there is now a massive liability over councils necks due to the fact 20moh shows it lowers deaths.
All I hear is feelings over facts. You offer no argument only feeling based response and it’s pathetic
I was re-iterating a point when I mentioned ” outside schools etc” but that obviously went over your head. Your own arguement, however ( if you can call it that) is based on anger issues. I suggest you refer yourself for anger management classes before you get personal. You’ve already lost what little credibility you gave yourself. No need to reply. 🙄
get them all reverted then put in special requests for problem roads based on accident data.
Um they did and they added tonit with high risk areas. Do you think they just pointed at a road and said “that one” mate, learn
The most sensible comment I’ve heard on this subject 👍
It’s a question of semantics! Unless Councils took positive action to retain a 30mph speed then it defaulted to 20mph. That’s a blanket change! If it wasn’t a blanket change then some roads would have remained with a 30mph speed limit without any action by any Council! It just highlights how politics is no longer about the people, but about the Party. The Party knows what’s best for the people irrespective of what the people might want. They set themselves arbitrary goals and then pat themselves on the back for achieving them, as it’s a measure of their ‘success’. Just… Read more »