Council has 'no plans' to scrap 20mph roads after consultation

Richard Evans, Local Democracy Reporter

No default 20mph roads in a north Wales county will be reverting to 30mph, despite the council receiving submissions from residents calling for over 200 roads to be changed back.

Generating huge controversy, the 20mph default limit was introduced in September 2023 by Welsh Government in the hope it would make roads safer.

But after a public backlash, transport secretary Ken Skates ordered a review when he was appointed last year.

This resulted in new guidance issued to councils for ‘exception’ roads – routes that would be permitted to revert to 30mph.

But Denbighshire County Council has now said it has no plans to increase speed limits on any current 20mph road back to 30mph.

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Default

A council spokesman said: “Denbighshire County Council is now in a position to confirm that there are no plans to increase the speed limit back to 30mph on any roads in Denbighshire, which are currently at the default speed limit of 20mph.”

Tremeirchion councillor Chris Evans said: “So there’s no roads in Denbighshire getting reverted back to the 30mph or 40mph speed limit.

“Wrexham have reverted some back and so have Flintshire, so why aren’t we doing that? It is having a massive detriment to travel, slowing things down. I appreciate through towns and outside schools, yes, but for example going past the golf club in Meliden, it is 20mph.

“Why? It was a 40mph road. To me, it needs to change. People are not happy.”

He added: “I’m sure some people do want the 20mph. But you only have to drive from St Asaph to County Hall in Ruthin. You go from 30 to 20 to 40 to 60 to 20 to 40. It is ludicrous.

“It is public money spent on this. We need forward thinking about how we are spending public money.”

Cllr Brian Jones said: “I totally respect and understand we need 20mph outside schools and hospitals and areas like that, but I feel if you put your business hat on, and if you are a plumber or an electrician, travelling on Russell Road in Rhyl, travelling at 20mph, and you are doing that every day of the week, that will add considerable time onto your journey and will cost your business over a month or year.

“Some roads, Russell Road in Rhyl for example, should have reverted back to 30mph. So I think Denbighshire have missed a trick.”

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Legislation

The Denbighshire spokesman added: “In September 2023, the Welsh Government introduced legislation which changed the default speed limit for residential roads from 30mph to 20mph.

“In 2024, the Welsh Government launched a review of the default speed limit. The conclusion of this review was that the default speed limit of 20mph was appropriate in the vast majority of cases, but it did provide guidance to local councils to assess any requests for ‘exceptions’ to the default speed limit.

“Exceptions would need to be granted on a case-by-case basis, and roads would need to meet a very strict set of criteria before they could be considered for an exception from the default 20mph speed limit.

“This review process means that people should assume that the speed limit of a road would not change unless genuine and exceptional circumstances could justify a change.

“The council received over 300 submissions/requests for exceptions for a total of 202 roads in Denbighshire. Barely any requests were made by residents living on any of the roads concerned. Almost all of the requests were made by people who travel through rather than live in the area.”

He added: “After assessing all 202 roads individually against the exceptions criteria, we can confirm that none of the roads met enough of the exception criteria that the council could safely consider increasing the speed limit. The council would like to thank everybody who took the time to get in touch with us as part of the review process.”