Editorial: Wales finds that 20mph limits need to have support to survive

Wales is reverting to a 30mph limit on many roads after an unpopular 20mph policy.

The policy had meant that the default limit in urban roads fell to 20mph, rather than the 30mph it still is in Northern Ireland and in England.

Now the Welsh Transport minister Ken Skates has said that the changes back to 30mph will address the concerns that "a lot of people" have raised "on a consistent basis".

"We've put our hands up to say the guidance has to be corrected," the BBC reported him as saying.

Almost half a million signatures were added to a petition sent to the Senedd – Wales’s parliament – in opposition to the policy, that was brought in under former first minister Mark Drakeford.

The policy also had many supporters, and its handling could perhaps be of assistance to Northern Ireland road policy. We have only a few 20mph zones, such as one in the very centre of Belfast, where it is hard for cars to get up much speed in any event due to the traffic lights.

Setting the right speed limit is a thorny business – there is, for example, a case for an 80mph limit on motorways, because they are the safest roads. But if that limit did rise from 70mph, it would need to be strictly enforced, perhaps by the development of a network of average speed cameras, to ensure that an 80 limit did not become in effect 90mph.

There is also a strong case to be made that the default 60mph limit on Ulster’s narrow, twisting country lanes is far too high, and such a limit on single carriageways should only apply to A roads, and perhaps B roads.

There is a further case to be made that all residential streets should be 20mph, while main urban roads remain 30. But Wales has shown that any change needs to have broad public support if it is to last.