A COUNTY councillor in Prestatyn has spoken out in support of the controversial new 20mph speed limits in Wales.

Cllr Jon Harland, Wales Green Party representative for the Prestatyn Central ward, said the new limits represent a “sensible, balanced approach”.

The speed limits of most residential roads in Wales were reduced to 20mph on September 17.

From then, most roads in Wales that previously had 30mph speed limits became 20mph, with the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, insistent that it will reduce crashes and save lives.

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Data analysts' 'astonishing' study of 20mph roads in Rhyl & Prestatyn

More than 432,000 signatures have been given to a petition urging Welsh Government to scrap the new 20mph speed limit.

But Cllr Harland said: “It's great; at last, we have a sensible, balanced approach in our road system whereby communities get less emissions, better health, more active travel, and much less chance of being seriously injured or killed if outside the vehicular bubble.

“The reasons for applying a 20mph (limit) outside schools also hold up elsewhere - everywhere where people live next to a road.

“The large majority of roads in Wales are not in built-up areas with streetlights, and do not come under the 20mph speed limit.

“Why is it illogical that speed limits take into account where people live and move around in their communities on a minority of the overall network?

“Of 509 residents in Prestatyn that I personally surveyed, the vast majority (91 per cent) placed ‘safer streets’ as important, which includes speeding and poorly-driven vehicles as a threat to safety.”

Earlier this week, data analysts who studied roads going through Rhyl and Prestatyn to assess the impact of the new 20mph speed limit found "astounding" results.

Public health analyst Agilysis studied a 85.8km stretch of road going through the two towns as part of the study.

In Rhyl and Prestatyn, it found that the median average speed of the vehicles studied pre-implementation of the new 20mph limit was 23.2mph.

After it came into effect on September 17, the median average speed in the two towns was 19.6mph.

This meant that Rhyl and Prestatyn saw the joint-greatest drop in average speed (3.7mph) across the 10 Welsh areas and 491km of roads studied, tied with Wrexham.

Elsewhere in Denbighshire, numerous new 20mph speed limit signs in Bodelwyddan have been defaced with graffiti.