Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 9 October 2019.
Thank you very much for that question. I too have one of these speed limits in my own constituency, so I'm very well aware—I've had exactly the same. The cameras have just gone live, and as you say, there's much more talk about them. I think the monitoring report that the Minister for Economy and Transport published on 7 October did confirm that, since the introduction of the 50 mph speed limit in June 2018, levels on the A470 between Upper Boat and the Bridge Street interchange have reduced, but of course they still remain above the EU directive limit of 40 μg/cu m. So it's too early to make any firm conclusions, and further monitoring is obviously being undertaken, but we were very reassured that across all of the five sites, we have seen a reduction. I think that now speed cameras are in place, that will encourage people again to adhere to those speed limits, which perhaps hasn't been the case over the last year, since the limits were first introduced.
Unfortunately, due to bad weather, the signs—because I thought it was very important we communicated much more clearly why we were putting those speed limits in place. In the other four sites, they've all had the signage installed now, but unfortunately on the A470 they haven't been able to do that. But we are looking—certainly the Minister's officials are looking to do that as a matter of urgency. [Interruption.] That's good to hear. It's so that people understand why we're doing it, because I think initially there was some confusion over the need for that 50 mph zone. I think the point that you make around thinking about where to site jobs, particularly public sector jobs, shows why it has to be across government, why it's not just the responsibility of the Minister for economy, or myself as Minister with responsibility for the environment. It has to be cross-government, and that's why all Ministers have to look at their policies to make sure we're doing all that we can around air pollution.