Wishful thinking

Labour may feel that they can gloat over this complaint by Manselton speed campaigners but they should not fool themselves that they are in touch with the community on this issue. Neither of the campaigners quoted in the article live in the area and in the case of Rhodri Griffiths he has been seeking to make political capital from the tragic death of a young girl for some time now.

The reason why there has been a delay in implementing this scheme is because the ward councillors have been working closely with local residents to get it right. The reason why the Council did not just slap a 20mph limit on the road and walk away as Rhodri Griffiths wants is because they did not wish to see any more children die there.

The inconvenient fact that Mr. Griffiths will not acknowledge is that the statutory speed limit is 30mph and that anything below that is unenforceable. The highway experts believe that the only way to slow traffic down is to change the road layout and that is what is happening.

Community politics is not about popularism, it is about working with a community to change things for the better. That is precisely what the Manselton Councillors have been doing. As for the budget cuts, Labour keep on saying that they have hit basic services but they can offer no evidence for this. In highways there is now a proper programme of repair, maintenance and replacement and there is more to come.

Update: The latest politicians to fall under the spell of the Liz Davies/Ray Welsby/Rhodri Griffiths axis are Plaid Cymru AM, Dai 'Preacher' Lloyd and his protégé, Darren 'babyface' Price. They have put out a statement supporting the demand for a 20mph zone in Manselton Road. It seems that they too have no regard to the future safety of local children and would happily see an ineffective and unenforceable 20mph limit in place rather than the measures that are being installed at present.

Making political capital

The death of Vicky Clement on Manselton Road was a tragedy but it did not take long for Green Party candidate, Rhodri Griffiths to jump on the bandwagon.

At the beginning he undoubtedly helped local residents focus on the need for action in the area and how to achieve that, however by the time he wrote this letter in yesterday's Evening Post, it had become clear that his main motovation was party political advantage.

As Mr. Griffiths knows full well a set of proposals for Manselton Road has been worked up and consulted on. These are on the verge of being implemented. There have been legal processes to go through as well as amendments made as a result of the consultation as Peter Black's letter in the same paper made clear.

However, for Rhodri Griffiths to feign ignorance of this process really takes the biscuit. He has been involved in talks from the start and has been kept informed about progress throughout. A more cynical person might conclude that he is now seeking to use this tragedy for political reasons. We could not possibly comment.