New 20mph speed limit will save lives – Mark Drakeford

By Gareth Lewis

BBC Wales political editor

Wales’ new 20mph speed limit will save lives, the first minister has insisted, 10 days before the lower limit for residential roads comes into force.

Mark Drakeford said the evidence was clear that “reducing speed limits reduces collisions and saves lives”.

He was speaking before visiting an area that has been trying out the lower limit for more than two years.

Mr Drakeford will meet firms, parents and children in St Brides Major, Vale of Glamorgan, on Thursday.

But critics, including some in St Brides, want better enforcement of the traditional 30mph limit instead.

On 17 September Wales will follow Spain, which made a similar change to 30kmh (18.6mph) in 2019 and has reported a fall in urban road deaths.

All roads in Wales that are currently 30mph (50km/h) will become 20mph (32kmh), although councils have been able to impose exemptions and have done so.

Ahead of his visit, Mr Drakeford, said he wants to help build “safer communities” for everyone with a policy being implemented for the first time across a UK nation.

“It will help make our streets quieter, reducing noise pollution, and slower speeds will give more people the confidence to cycle and walk around their local areas and encourage children to play outdoors,” he said.

“Evidence from around the world is clear – reducing speed limits reduces collisions and saves lives.”

Image source, 20s Plenty campaign

We visited St Brides a few weeks before the first minister’s visit.

The village has been part of a 20mph trial zone since July 2021, after a local campaign.

The main road through is a popular route for drivers going to the beaches at Ogmore and Southerndown, and further into the Vale.

Mingling with pub-goers in St Brides, I met Stephen Fisher, who described himself as an “ex-traffic cop”.

“Speed is the biggest killer but you need to enforce the speeding rules,” he told me.

He regards the 20mph plan as nothing more than a “political bullet point from Drakeford – and I just don’t agree with it”.

“I think it’s a bit like the drink-drive laws were 30 to 50 years ago,” he said.

“People then realised it was socially unacceptable, speeding will turn out to be exactly the same.

“But how are we going to do that? Enforcement.

“People don’t like talking about getting themselves three points speeding through this village.”

Would he welcome a speed camera here?

“Absolutely,” he said, but accompanied by the old speed limit.

“30mph with a camera, absolutely.”

A fellow drinker, also called Steve but preferred to not give me his surname, said he also wanted a speed camera, but called the 20mph trial a “great idea”.

“It slows the traffic down,” he said.

“And they need to be slowed down – people were coming through here at 50 miles an hour.

“You’ve got children playing, you’ve got people walking dogs.

“You still get the idiot coming through, but it’s made a big difference.”

An interim monitoring report of the trial zones carried out by Transport for Wales, and published in March showed an average reduction in speed of 3mph.

It also showed that when speed cameras were in place speed dropped further, only to return to previous levels once the enforcement period had ended.

Away from the trial, we headed to Barry, 16 miles from St Brides. It is Wales’ biggest town and home to nearly 60,000 people.

By Welsh standards it is a big urban area, but when you look at the map of exemptions to the new 20mph law, there are vanishingly few.

Image source, 20’s Plenty campaign

We spoke to businesses on the town’s High Street and also one of the area’s MSs – the leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, Andrew RT Davies.

The Conservatives have been vocal opponents of the default 20mph plans, saying they should be used around places like schools and hospitals, but not everywhere.

They have also raised concerns about the roughly £30m spent on the scheme and longer term cost implications over the next 30 years because of longer journey times.

Mr Davies did pose with 20mph signs back in 2018 with campaigners from Sully, but says this was part of a more local campaign.

“We want to see safe roads, we want to see good road education, we want to see an uplift in standards on Welsh roads, but we don’t believe having across Wales 20mph is the way to do that,” he said.

“Yes, have it round schools, yes have 20mph around care homes and hospitals, people agree with that.

“We police by consent, people want to motor by consent, and I don’t believe that people will want to subscribe to this particular measure.

“But if it’s the law you have to stick to it.”

Rachel Thomson, who works at Maggie Jo’s coffee house in Barry, thinks that’s precisely what people won’t do.

“I just don’t think people are going to stick to it, to be honest.

“Some of the faster roads might drop to 20mph so I think it’s going to cause a lot of confusion.

“On open roads is there any need to be going quite so slow?”

Catherine Goodman, at the Food for Thought Delicatessen, said 20mph is “perfect” for High Street, with so many shoppers and other pedestrians crossing the road.

Elsewhere, she said “it’s going to be manic, there’s going to be traffic everywhere”.

“It’s busy enough at school times – pick up times and drop off, it’s just going to cause mayhem, I believe.”

Her colleague Anna Hardwick agreed.

“Outside schools, yes I do agree. But, otherwise, I just don’t see why we have to have all the roads at 20mph, no.”

Both women say they would be unable to make as many deliveries due to the lower speed limit.

In just over a week the talking will be over and it will be time to put your best foot forward for the start of the new 20mph law… though probably on the brake, not the accelerator.

Additional reporting by Adrian Browne

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