Speeding convictions and fines will rise this autumn in Wales after the new default 20mph limit is introduced and Welsh Government ordered the removal of warning repeater signs and funded more camera vans.
Existing 20mph repeater signs and soon-to-be illegal 30mph repeater signs will be taken down, offered to English authorities or recycled as scrap. Wales is the first part of the UK to introduce a default 20mph limit.
Answering a Freedom of Information request from WheelsWithinWales, the Welsh Government said 20mph repeater signs will not be permitted on the newly reclassified roads and councils will have 12 months to remove them.
The precise number of signs to be taken down, both 20mph and 30mph, is unknown but realistically will be tens of thousands, and changes to the signage and markings has a budget of £26.7Million.
Wales will also be exporting its redundant signs to any English authorities who want them with unsuitable signs recycled.
In February, Welsh Government confirmed it’s allocated £10M this year to implement the new lower limit, five times that spent the previous 12 months and in April said it had funded extra Go Safe camera vans with £35,000 to enforce 20mph pilot schemes.
Now, an additional £80,000 is set aside for enforcement in the next financial year with £2.5M to cover running ticketing offices in Wales.
Welsh Government claims the new lower limit would save lives have been debunked by studies in Queens University, Belfast, Edinburgh University and University of Cambridge which found the 10mph reduction had little impact on road safety.
Local authorities can apply to waive the new 20mph limit if they or residents’ feel it’s unsuitable for a particular stretch of urban road but they are being encouraged to stick to the new lower limit by Welsh Government.
The new pilot limit was lifted in some places in Wales where it led to congestion.
It has been described by Welsh Conservatives as one of a number of “vanity projects” and they want the money spent on road resurfacing improvements instead which could also lead to reductions in road injuries and deaths.
