Proposals to introduce 20 mph speed limit zones in Tenby may not be plausible due to enforcement issues, councillors were told this week.

At a recent meeting of Tenby town council, members unanimously agreed to support a proposal by Tenby Civic Society to introduce a 20 mph speed limit to the centre of Tenby and its outskirts, including Park Road.

A response from Pembrokeshire County Council’s head of infrastructure Darren Thomas came before members of the town council at their meeting on Tuesday night.

“At the moment there is no agreed approach to setting 20 mph as the default speed limit in urban residential areas - we therefore continue to set speed limits in accordance with the document ‘Setting Local Speed Limits in Wales’. A key theme is that speed limits should be evidence led and self-enforcing,” explained Mr. Thomas.

“Coincidentally I attended a ‘steering group’ for the Wales Camera Safety Partnership recently where enforcement of 20 mph areas was discussed.

“The police have serious concerns about 20 mph speed limits - their feedback is that a number of 20 mph areas across Wales have not been set in accordance with the guidance documents, and that therefore speeds are too high, resulting in a number of locations where the public might expect speed to be 20 mph, but it is not, and unsustainable expectation on enforcement.

“They are very cautious about extending or setting 20 mph as the default unless there is a good chance that speeds will actually be 20 mph,” continued Mr. Thomas, adding for the town council to advise further if there were specific streets they had in mind to be examined.

The town clerk Andrew Davies said that basically it boiled down to very little chance of a 20 mph blanket ban being imposed in the town, but real problem areas and streets could be looked at.

The Deputy Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown called the response ‘lame’ and said that the police should be on hand to enforce any speed restrictions imposed.

“Who enforces it any way, I’ve never seen anyone outside St Teilo’s School where the limit is 20 mph,” she said, although Mr. Davies pointed out that you would occasionally see a speed camera van in that area.

“We’re a small enough town to warrant such a 20 mph limit, and if the police don’t enforce it, then you’d like to think that the public would.”

Clr. Trevor Hallett pointed out that vehicles still continued to speed going down St. John’s Hill, despite that being a 20 mph zone.

The Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane asked for the county council to at least consider looking at Park Road, and then go from there.

“We have an abundance of signage in Tenby, all it would need would be two signs from the Norton and the bottom of Greenhill to cover the whole town and state that it is a 20 mph zone,” added Clr. Laurence Blackhall.