Storm settles after 20mph chaos
The 20mph Welsh speed limit changes have been one of the most controversial decisions in Welsh political history, with the heavy public push back being bigger than any other law change in recent memory. We hear from a Senedd committee dedicated to looking into the issue, and finding out about a meeting with local authorities airing their concerns.
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00:00 The general feedback was that they had noticed that complaints had reduced and tailed off,
00:07 which has certainly been our experience too. There were issues of vandalism, which is a
00:16 concern and we've agreed to work with them to address that. There are some concerns about
00:22 some anomalies locally, which we said we don't think needs to wait.
00:28 Guidance as part of the 20mph speed limit changes offered local authorities the opportunity
00:32 to keep certain roads at 30mph rather than change them to 20. This gave councils with
00:37 greater local knowledge the opportunity to use common sense and best practice to make
00:41 sure suitable roads didn't change unnecessarily. But some councils made plenty of changes and
00:46 some made none.
00:47 There clearly is a lot of discretion within the guidance and there isn't a blanket ban,
00:52 otherwise how could Swansea have issued so many? But the fact that Denbighshire has issued
00:55 so few at the other end of the spectrum also shows that there is a lack of a consistent
00:59 approach here and you'd expect that to a degree with 22 different local authorities, some
01:04 have different legal advice. So we want to get to the bottom of that and why that is.
01:11 These are obviously local decisions but we do want to have a degree of national consistency.
01:16 Of course one of the major parts of the change was the huge public outcry over the issue,
01:20 which Lee Waters says was expected, but does think that it will blow over in the near future
01:24 just as it has countless times in the past.
01:28 It happened when the bleacher beacons were introduced, when 30 mile an hour speed limits
01:32 were introduced, when 70 mile an hour speed limits were introduced, when the breathalyser
01:36 was introduced, when seatbelts were made compulsory. So that didn't take us by surprise. I think
01:44 one of the key lessons we learned from the pilots was the importance of consultation
01:48 and engagement in advance of the change being made. And for various reasons I don't think
01:54 that has been as full as we would have liked and we completely understand the pressure
01:58 local authorities are under. But I think we knew that was going to be the case and that
02:03 has proven to be the case.
02:04 Opposition to the change was expected but maybe not quite on the massive unprecedented
02:09 scale we saw over the first few weeks of the change. One entirely unplanned aspect was
02:13 the amount of awareness that the backlash actually caused, something the Welsh government
02:17 will certainly take but never expected.
02:21 Some of the budget, the communications budget, was set aside for raising awareness and I
02:26 think we've got no doubt that the Welsh public are aware that there has been a change. So
02:30 I think in some ways it has made that task a little easier but what we now need to do
02:37 is demonstrate the benefits and almost potentially congratulate the Welsh public for responding
02:43 positively when as we expect speeds do come down and that it has made a difference and
02:49 we celebrate the benefits.
02:51 It seems the dust has somewhat settled within the 20mph speed limit changes but there may
02:56 be more changes yet to come, many of which might lighten the issues so many have had
03:00 with the law.
03:01 James B. Twotkins, Local TV.
03:02 (engine revving)