The end of hated 20mph speed limit in Wales: Roads revert to 30mph as transport minister reveals even his own family have signed 500,000-strong petition against the scheme

Roads in Wales will revert to 30mph following backlash at the Welsh government's controversial 20mph zone rollout.

Transport minister Ken Skates said the decision to change some routes back to the its 30mph speed limits will address concerns that 'a lot of people' have raised 'on a consistent basis'.

He said: 'We've put our hands up to say the guidance has to be corrected.'

It comes after more than half a million signatures were added to a Senedd petition opposing the divisive policy aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

'There is generally universal support for 20mph being targeted in areas where there are schools, built up areas like housing estates, and outside hospitals and so-forth,' Mr Skates told North Wales Live.

'But in many areas, routes that shouldn't have been included, were.'

He is expected to address the forthcoming changes in a statement to the Welsh Parliament on Tuesday.

Swansea council leader Rob Stewart last night welcomed the change, but said the Welsh Government, led by Labour's First Minister Vaughan Gething, must help foot the bill to swap signage.

However, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousef is considering introducing his own 20mph speed limit despite the experience in Wales, which has seen some ministers receive abuse online. 

Former Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford said more could have been done to 'prepare the ground' for the controversial policy. 

The policy was introduced in September last year, with the promise that lower speed limits would lead to fewer collisions and people injured.

It has also seen fierce opposition from the Conservatives in the Senedd, who have branded it a 'waste of time and resources'.

He said that while the policy had been in Labour's manifesto during the last Senedd election, he understood that people in Wales 'lead busy lives' and do not 'spend their evenings flicking through the programme for government'.

He said: 'So there probably was more that we could have done,' he said. 'In the end, no matter how much you prepare the ground, when change comes, it can be challenging.

'Look at the history of changes in relation to the way people use their motor cars, it's always been challenging.

'Whether that was introducing 30mph speed limits, that wasn't easy to do; the breathalyser was fiercely opposed by people, as was wearing seatbelts.

'I don't think we look back now and say that was the wrong thing to do, we should allow people to spend the night in the pub and get in the car and drive home.

'In an era of climate change, we're all going to have to travel differently. The idea that we can go on using up the world's finite resources, for our own benefit in our own time and leave the problem for somebody after us to clear up, that cannot be a responsible way to approach these things.

'And tough as it has been in some ways, it remains a policy that will save people's lives, that will prevent thousands of accidents, that has given people back the streets that they live in.

'Very few people argue for the street they live in to go back to 30 miles an hour.'