Denbighshire County Council Complete Default 20mph Speed Limit Review

Denbighshire County Council have recently completed their review of the default 20mph speed limit in the County.

In September 2023 the Welsh Government introduced legislation which changed the default speed limit for residential roads from 30mph to 20mph.

Following the implementation the Welsh Government launched a review of the default speed limit in 2024 and concluded that the default speed limit of 20mph was appropriate in the vast majority of cases.

However, an updated guidance was provided to local councils to assess any requests for ‘exceptions’ to the default speed limit.

Exceptions are lengths of road where the speed limit would be reverted to 30 mph, but they would need to be granted on a case-by-case basis and meet a very strict set of criteria, before they could be considered for an exception from the default 20mph speed limit.

The Council received over 300 submissions for exceptions for a total of 202 roads in Denbighshire and assessed all suggested exceptions rigorously in accordance with the new Welsh Government guidelines for setting exceptions.  

After assessing all 202 roads individually against the exceptions criteria, it was decided that none of the roads met enough of the exception criteria that the Council could safely consider increasing the speed limit.

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead member for Environment and Transport said:

“Following the extensive work from our officers to assess over 300 submissions, it was decided that none of the suggested roads met the criteria set by the Welsh Government to safely increase the speed limit to 30mph. I would like to thank the officers involved with assessing the submissions we received, and I’d also like to thank the residents who took the time to get in touch with us as part of the review process”.