5. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: Active Travel

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:01 pm on 14 May 2019.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:01, 14 May 2019

Thank you. To take those two questions in reverse order—on Transport for Wales, the Member's absolutely right, and, as I said, I met with them yesterday, along with Sustrans, to see if we could encourage them to create a strategic partnership to make sure that we could deliver this in a way that was both integrated in terms of the package of train work that they're doing, and potentially bus work, to make sure active travel is absolutely mainstreamed in terms of the transport system, but also allowing, through working with Sustrans, a degree of challenge and help to local authorities to be able to do that effectively. So, that's very much on my mind and I'll be meeting them again in a month or so to follow that up.

On the point of 20 mph zones, I must pay tribute to John Griffiths for the advocacy work he's done in this Assembly, along with other Members, and also the work he did as the Minister who took through the active travel Act. His point on the default of 20 mph is a really important one. Currently, if you're in a local authority, and we've all, through constituency representation, had groups of people who want slower speeds in their area. It's the issue that's raised with me consistently when I have monthly public meetings—they don't like speed bumps, on the whole, they tend to divide opinion, but they do want slower speeds. And I think we need to move from the position where we see 30 as the default with a case to be made for 20, to being 20 as the default with a case to be made for 30. So, shifting that burden of proof, because, at the moment, we have a very complicated and expensive way of having to put through transport orders in order to bring in a 20 mph zone. So, I think we need to end the days of zones and start seeing 20 at the speed limit area-wide, and that then becomes self-reinforcing as speeds slow down. There still is an issue of police enforcement, which, I think, we're going to have to confront, but where it's working well, it is a largely self-reinforcing system.

The cost of that—I know there's some concern in local authorities about the practicalities of this, and this is why we're setting up this working group with the WLGA to work through the details. But the mandate we've given them is significant. It's not, 'Would you consider whether we should have more 20 mph zones?' The policy direction is: 'We want 20 mph as default, and we want you to work together to work through the practicalities of that to make it work for you, to make it practical and affordable, and to make sure the design is done so that it's effective.' And I was very pleased that Phil Jones, who led the work on the active travel design guidance, has agreed to chair that panel. I see it very much as an active travel intervention. Rod King, who John Griffiths brought to meet me some months ago, has also agreed to join the group. So, we have some good behaviour-change people around the table, and I also want to make sure we bring local authority leaders with us on this, because the intent is to help them to deliver the public health benefits that they are obliged to deliver and we all want to see. Public Health Wales have done an evidence review on this that shows the public health point of view: this is a no-brainer, but we need to work through the practicalities. The 20's Plenty for Us movement have claimed—and I have no reason to doubt it, but I've not seen the evidence—that a national speed limit will be eight times cheaper than individual authorities making 20 mph zones. So, that's the sort of thing we now need to work through while the group is being set up.