Monmouthshire County Council, which ruled out changes to 20 mile per hour speed limits won’t be forced to release all responses to its review.

More than 1,500 comments were received and 143 roads suggested for reconsideration in Monmouthshire after the Welsh Government told councils to invite the public to suggest where they believed the limit should be amended.

From that however only four roads were selected for further examination and the council’s Labour/Green administration decided, in February, against restoring a 30mph limit on any of the four.

At the council’s March 6 meeting the Conservative opposition asked councillors to instruct the administration “to publish the redacted consultation responses in full”.

It also criticised the way the council has run consultations and said the democratic services committee should be asked “to consider and make recommendations to the administration” on how they engagement exercises are run.

But the motion was defeated on the casting vote of council chairman, Labour’s Su McConnell, after a tied vote.

Conservative group leader Richard John, who proposed the motion, said “many urban areas should have a 20mph limit” but said there should be “more flexibility” over where it is applied.

He said 93 per cent of responses to the council’s invitation for feedback had wanted to see changes made and said councillors didn’t know how the requests had been assessed.

In response to the cabinet member for highways, Catrin Maby, who said releasing all 1,496 responses would be time consuming as personal information would have to be removed, Cllr John said at present councillors don’t know how the information relates to their local areas.

He said: “We’ve no idea of where the 1,500 people could be. Half of them could be in Llanbadoc and Usk.”

Cllr Maby said the council had taken part in the 20mph pilot, that was trialled in Abergavenny and the Severnside area, and before the national policy was rolled out in September 2023 all local councillors in Monmouthshire were invited by her to consider the proposed new limits and give feedback, as well as help agree exemptions.

Cllr Maby said responses to the 2024 review were examined against Welsh Government guidance which resulted in four roads, the B4245 through Magor, Undy, Rogiet, and Caldicot; Hereford Road, Abergavenny; the A4143, Abergavenny; and A4077 Abergavenny Road and Cae Meldon, Gilwern, being further reviewed.

The councillor said that included consultation with local councillors.

Labour member Tudor Thomas said a schoolboy had been knocked over on Park Crescent, Abergavenny a year ago: “The car was coming down, at probably just under 20mph, and he was injured and got up and checked over at A and E. Had the driver been doing 30mph, or just more, they would have been calling the local undertaker.”

Councillors from all sides agreed ways to improve consultations could be considered through the democratic services committee.

Cllr Sandles, who is responsible for consultations, also said of the 1,496 responses received on the 20mph policy 119 were neutral, 498 supported retaining the speed limits and 1,118 wanted limits restored to 30mph.