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Dozens of stretches of road could revert to 30mph speed limits

By Mark Mansfield
Photo Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

Dozens of stretches of road in one local authority could revert to 30mph speed limits, the Local Democracy Reporting Service understands.

Caerphilly Council officers will have to carry out detailed traffic surveys on those roads before any final decisions are made, however.

The ongoing review follows the lowering of Wales’ default speed limit to 20mph in September 2023.

Welsh transport secretary Ken Skates launched a “national listening programme” last year, aimed at consulting the members of the public on roads they thought should not have been included in the switch to 20mph.

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Controversial

Although the lower speed limits were introduced for health and road safety reasons, the decision proved controversial and led to protests and a Senedd petition demanding change, signed by a record number of people.

Changes at the top of the Welsh Government were followed by a softer approach to the policy, involving more consultation with people and opening the door for some roads to be reconsidered.

In Caerphilly, it is understood 55 roads have been accepted for review by the local authority.

Residents had reportedly filed requests for roughly twice that number of roads, but the remainder did not meet the government’s strict criteria for potential change.

This could have been because those stretches of road were too close to sensitive areas such as schools, for example.

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Traffic Regulation Orders

If Welsh councils are able to show it is safe to revert a stretch of road back to 30mph, they will have to issue Traffic Regulation Orders for each area, offering people a further chance to have their say.

It is understood that Caerphilly County Borough Council will carry out traffic surveys until the spring.

Councils were given a share of an extra £5 million in government funding to carry out the review of roads – and that follows an initial £38 million spent nationwide on the 20mph policy to August 2024.

Cllr Kevin Etheridge, an independent from Blackwood, said decision-makers “should have listened” before making the switch to 20mph.

While welcoming the review, he criticised the “additional cost to the taxpayer” and said the ongoing process had placed further pressure on stretched local authorities.

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17 comments

Susan Davies

Why should they get a refund for a legitimate fine? We don't get to pick and choose which speed limits and traffic laws we obey and nobody can claim to not know about default 20mph limits by now!

Reply
J Jones

Also in the meantime, the individual who refused to listen when setting up the system now says his party is in trouble because it refuses to listen, taking the moral high ground as he's on his bike next year and looking for a new career - with a politics degree!

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blc

Stop repeating propaganda. There is no 'blanket speed limit' or 'blanket ban'. Traffic orders were already used to reduce the speed limit on roads prior to the change in default speed limit. Since this change came into force, it's now easier to increase a road's speed limit from the default to 30mph than it was to reduce a road's speed limit from the default to 20mph.

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blc

So... what you're saying is... a council is reviewing the default speed limit on a number of restricted roads... meaning that they're exercising the power that the legislation grants to local authorities... So... are you saying that the legislation is... working as intended...? This is all news to me... Based on all the discourse I've seen about the default speed limit change, I always thought that it was a bunch overpaid jobsworth bureaucrats in Cardiff Bay that were deciding which roads should be 20mph, and that they were making decisions based purely on how many free drinks they'd had from the free bar that us taxpayers are subsidising... Well well, this has certainly been an educational experience for me. And in case anyone didn't get it, I am being sarcastic. Very sarcastic. The legislation always allowed for local councils to review the default speed limit, and gave guidance on the circumstances under which those limits could be raised. The legislation always specified that there would be a post-implementation review process to assess the effectiveness of both the legislation itself and the guidelines issued.

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John Ellis

While this doesn't, from what I see locally, seem to have happened in Denbighshire where I live, from what I've read I do get the impression that some local authorities seem to have pretty much adopted a policy of imposing a 20 mph speed limit on any section of road which is provided with street lights, regardless of whether the road has a lot of residential or commercial premises along it, with all the consequential increased footfall which that implies. I suspect that quite a bit of the opposition to the '20 limit' might have been mitigated if the restriction had been determined with greater discrimination by local councils.

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blc

Don’t get me wrong, the rollout was terrible. The communication was poor and the support & engagement with local authorities was atrocious. So I can certainly see why many councils would just go “eh, 20mph will do, we’ve got other problems to worry about”.

Reply

In reply to blc

John Ellis

I think that you're probably right in taking that view. Personally I'm quite easy with the principle of the 20 mph limit, because the evidence already - a fall in reports of serious road accidents and fewer accident insurance claims - is that less road accidents are now occurring. But it does seem to be the case that some local authorities would have been wiser to have given more consideration to the actual process of where, in specific instances, the new rule ought to be appropriately applied.

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colin

Surely Local authorities could have just been given the power in the first place to change any potentially dangerous roads to 20 from 30 rather than a ridiculous nation speed limit of 20?

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Yuri Nator

Agree and they already did have that power, hence why 20 zones existed around schools and hospitals. The saying only fools rush in springs to mind with all of this. It was an avoidable cock-up. The manifesto pledge was, “make 20mph the default speed limit in residential areas and ban pavement parking,” to quote exactly. The legislation introduced however applied to all restricted roads; not all restricted roads are in residential areas. They probably did get advice on this but one can only assume chose to ignore it or were that incompetent they didn’t have a clue what they were doing. The legislation was ultimately defective and rushed through. This was why we ended up with the ridiculous situation of examples of roads in industrial areas with not a single dwelling on them being affected. Clearly in no sane person’s mind would such a road be “in a residential area.” I spotted on X last year someone pointed all of the above out to Plaid Cymru’s leader and asked why Plaid had voted for it. Rhun was asked surely someone had the sense to question why is this legislation not confined to residential areas and won’t it affect main roads that are currently 30? Is that really needed? He tried fudging his answer, so this other person wasn’t having it. They followed up and asked him was his position then that the Members didn’t understand what they were voting for. He became quite defensive at that point, so clearly the other person had hit upon something!

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A Evans

Thousands of 30mph & 60mph roads were "adjusted" by the blanket speed limit ban. Just "dozens" reverted back. This corrupt Senedd is still not listening to the voters, but are extracting the ur*n* with this offer!

Reply
Jeff

They had it in the manifesto, there was a vote on it. Point 9 in their list of promises. Which corruption are you unhappy with?

Reply
Barry

Because most are fine at twenty and people didn't want them reverted.

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blc

I think I must have missed something here… Did the Welsh government ban blankets? Or was it speed limits they banned? Incidentally, they did listen to voters. They listened to voters when voters elected Labour to power in Cardiff Bay, because the default speed limit reduction was in the Labour manifesto. *You* might not have voted for Labour, but I’m afraid that’s just how representative democracy works - your favoured candidate isn’t guaranteed to win. And speaking of representative democracy… a badly-written partisan rant in a petition is not the basis for the legislative agenda in a representative democracy.

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Hughie

Well said!

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Hughie

What 60 was blanket adjusted?.... not one.

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Barry

The old way needed enough accidents to occur before they were changed. How many deaths in enough to justify twenty, in your view?

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John

Why do they need to do traffic surveys ,before the roads can be changed from 20mph to 30mph .when they introduced the 20mph limit .they didn't survey the roads .it was a blanket exercise

Reply

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While this doesn't, from what I see locally, seem to have happened in Denbighshire where I live, from what I've read I do get the impression that some local authorities seem to have pretty much adopted a policy of imposing a 20 mph speed li...

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