No 20mph roads to revert to 30mph, council says

No roads will be changed back to 30mph from 20mph in one county following a Wales-wide shake-up.

A review of the Welsh government's 20mph speed limit was announced last year following a public backlash.

The 20mph speed limit, covering 37% of the Welsh road network, was brought in by ministers in September 2023, attracting some criticism.

But Denbighshire County Council has confirmed it had no plans to increase the speed limit on any of the current 20mph roads.

Transport Minister Ken Skates previously said the decision to reverse parts of the controversial £34m default 20mph policy was in response to "consistent" concerns raised by "a lot of people".

Last July, the Welsh government gave councils more flexibility to assess the "movement" and "road characteristics" of specific routes, beyond just proximity to schools, hospital and other key locations.

In March, the maximum speed limit on four busy roads in Cardiff was changed back to 30mph from 20mph, and in February it was announced that 50 stretches of road in Wrexham would revert to 30mph.

It comes as the data for the first year of the policy showing there had been about 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured on 20 and 30mph roads.

Chris Evans, councillor for Tremeirchion, said that Wrexham had reverted some roads back, as had Flintshire and questioned why Denbighshire had not.

"It is having a massive detriment to travel, slowing things down," he said.

"I appreciate through towns and outside schools, but for example going past the golf club, it is 20mph. Why?

"It was a 40mph road, to me it needs to change. People are not happy."

Councillor Brian Jones said he understood that 20mph was needed outside schools and hospitals, but "if you put your business hat on, and if you are a plumber or an electrician, travelling on Russell Road in Rhyl at 20mph, and you are doing that every day of the week, that will add considerable time on to your journey and will cost you business over a month or year".

"Some roads should, like Russell Road, have reverted back to 30mph. I think Denbighshire have missed a trick," he added.

The announcement by Denbighshire council follows Monmouthshire council's decision to reject calls to raise the default 20mph speed limit on a number of roads in the county.

Denbighshire council said it had received more than 300 submissions for exceptions for a total of 202 roads, adding that barely any requests were made by residents living on any of the roads concerned, with almost all of the requests made by people who travel through rather than live in the area."

"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," it said.