The politician responsible for Wales' 20mph rollout has accepted that things should have been "different". In his speech during a debate on a petition against the policy the former deputy minister for climate change, Lee Waters MS, said he accepted there were "things the Welsh Government should have done differently" amid the controversial rollout.
The Senedd was debating on a petition against the 20mph rollout on Wednesday. The petition was signed by more than 450,000 people opposing Wales' 20mph speed limit, which was started as the law came into force in September 2023.
It called for the Welsh Government "to rescind and remove the disastrous 20mph law". The petition became the largest the Senedd has ever had. Questions were later raised about the checks that were made before signatures were added.
On Wednesday Mr Waters acknowledged how difficult it was to implement such a policy but highlighted that the policy had "saved lives". Addressing the Senedd he said: "Llywydd, a protest of this size should make us pause and reflect. And it has. Though the petition itself is unfortunately full of misunderstandings and misinformation that’s not really the point. Hundreds of thousands of people put their names to it and it made us sit up and take notice.
"Of course we expected push-back but the intensity of it was greater than we anticipated. Thankfully, things have now settled down. And we now know that 97% of the people who signed the petition did so in the first two weeks after the speed limit changed when the signs were still going up in some places. But we listened to the protest and we acted. We launched a review, earlier than planned, into how the speed limit was being implemented. And far from ‘marking our own homework’, as we were accused, the initial report from the review panel was pretty blunt.
"It said there were things the Welsh Government should have done differently, that I should have done differently, and that local councils should have done differently. And I accept that. The review said the communications campaign came too late; there wasn’t enough support and buy-in from across the Welsh Government to prepare for the change; and there was poor consultation by local councils with their communities. And I agree with all that."
He added: "Listening and learning is not failure. It sometimes takes more than one go to get things right. And as I said at the outset, a change of this scale, of this complexity, implemented across 22 different local authorities – in an era of austerity and hollowed-out staffing – was always going to be tricky. And perhaps the trickiest part was the cultural change this represented, which we definitely underestimated.
"We have a deep-seated culture of car dominance in our country. What researchers from Swansea University’s psychology department have called ‘motor normativity’; where people have an in-built acceptance of the harms from motor vehicles that they would not accept in other parts of life. That makes any challenge to car dominance very hard to do and that’s why it is usually avoided. Lowering the speed limit challenged the sense of entitlement some drivers had developed over decades that they should be able to go fast, regardless of the impact on the people living on those streets and the children playing on them – or, more accurately, the children not playing on them because it didn’t feel safe."
He later added: "We’ve seen culture warriors, here and elsewhere, seize on the issue to create conflict in communities. And we’ve seen deliberate misinformation, and false descriptions like ‘blanket’, designed to deliberately sow confusion. And our evidenced-based, modestly-funded information campaign was simply drowned out. We lost the comms war. It has been rough on everyone on the frontline of this bold and ambitious policy. So to everyone in a public-facing role who has faced the wrath and abuse that has come with this big change; to local government officers, local councillors, community campaigners, Senedd Members and MPs; to the police and fire service. Can I say thank you. We should all be proud of the fact that the policy is working. Speeds are down. People are driving slower.
"Despite the criminal damage, the misinformation, the aggressive driving and tailgating, the protests, and the petition. Average speeds are down – 4mph slower in the first few months in the last data we have. And for every drop in the average speed limit of 1mph casualties are estimated to fall by 6%. That’s fewer heartbroken families. Fewer lives destroyed. Fewer people filling A&E and consultant waiting lists. And fewer who feel unsafe in their own communities. I’m not sure what price you can put on that to be honest. Has the implementation been perfect? Of course it hasn’t. It was never going to be. The reality is that there just was not enough capacity and resources at the Welsh Government end, nor at the local government end, to do everything we wished to. Has it been universally welcomed?
"Of course it hasn’t. It was never going to be. But while we hear from the objectors we tend not to hear so much from the supporters. I think it is significant that councils were telling us all along that they received very few examples of people who thought the speed on their own street was too low. Llywydd, mistakes were made, particularly in not doing genuine consultations in communities, and in the uneven and inflexible way the guidance was interpreted in some parts of Wales. I am prepared to accept my part in all that. But let the two-thirds of members of the Senedd who supported a default 20mph speed limit remember: there are people alive today because of this law. Together we will have saved lives."
The 20mph law came into force in September 2023 under Mark Drakeford's administration. He promised a review into the scheme after six months, which coincided with the new Labour leader, Vaughan Gething, taking over. The scheme now falls under the remit of Ken Skates, the transport minister. He vowed to carry out a three stage review including a "genuine listening exercise" where people are asked to give details of the roads they want to see change back to 30mph.
The guidance councils have to use to enforce the policy will also be reworked. The changes will cost millions, on top of the £33m already spent but Mr Skates could not say how many roads he expects to change. During Wednesday's debate Mr Skates said he took "full responsibility" moving forward and vowed to make the policy a "success" in Wales.
More roads are expected to change in north rather than south Wales. The leaders of Cardiff and Swansea councils have, respectively, said they expect six and 10 to change in their council area. You can read the detail of his announcement from April here.
More than 1,500 people were caught breaking the 20mph speed limit in April, by far the highest monthly figure since enforcement began. The average speeds of people caught breaking the limit were more than 30mph in both south and north Wales – the highest average speed in either area since the speed limits changed.
