20mph a "shambles" says MS following new guidance

Sam Rowlands, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales, says he fears the Welsh Government so called listening campaign will lead to hardly any roads being reverted back to 30mph.

Earlier this week guidance was published on reverting roads back to 30mph across Wales.

From September, highway authorities can start to apply the new framework to assess speed limits on roads where a change is considered appropriate.

The numbers of roads reviewed is expected to vary considerably depending on the volume of feedback received by each highway authority, and as a result the timescales for delivering change will vary from one local authority to another.

Sam Rowlands. (Image: Welsh Parliament for North Wales)

Mr Rowlands, a long time critic of the introduction of the 20mph default speed limit says new guidance for councils from the Transport Minister, Ken Skates, will do very little to satisfy angry and frustrated motorists.

He said: “Everybody knows how I feel about this nonsensical and crazy law making many of our roads 20mph when almost all of them quite clearly could remain at 30.

“Almost half a million people in Wales signed a petition against this implementation, however, this was totally ignored by Welsh Government and they pressed ahead. Not considering the fall out for the public, services, businesses and the economy.

“Then the Transport Minister said he was prepared to listen to the public and launched a campaign asking people what they wanted and urging them to tell their local councils. He has issued new guidance which is a step in the right direction except over 470,000 people had already said they did not want a default 20mph on their roads. What more proof did he need.

“So now an extra £5m is being made available for councils to make speed limit changes and they will have to bid for the funding, as if our struggling local authorities have not got enough to do.

“The whole exercise has been a complete and utter shambles from the beginning and the money spent on this ill-advised and quite frankly bonkers idea, should have been spent on our NHS, education and local government services.

“I know the whole situation is dragging on but I will continue to hold the Welsh Government to account on this and fight for this law to be scrapped.”

When publishing the new guidance, Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport, Ken Skates said: “I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has taken the time to provide us with their feedback. It’s been great to see so many people getting involved. 

“The recent collisions data for Wales and the reduction in casualties was encouraging. We have still got a way to go but it shows things are moving in the right direction.

“By working together and supporting highways authorities to make changes where it is right to do so, I believe we can continue to make 20mph a real success story for Wales.”