According to a Powys safety group, over 100 people have been killed on the county’s roads over the course of 10 years.

The Strategic Road Safety Group have labelled road safety in Powys as “in crisis”, arguing that it will “continue to impact on the lives of residents and visitors, as well as the local economy” if something is not done about it.

The Strategic Road Safety Group is made up of representatives from Dyfed Powys Police, Welsh Government and the Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Commissioner, as well as members of Powys County Council, such as Cllr Richard Church, Cabinet Member for a Safer Powys and Cllr Jackie Charlton, Cabinet Member for a Greener Powys.

Speaking for the group, Cllrs Church and Chalton said: “In the last ten years, nearly 100 people have died on our roads in Powys.

“Many hundreds more lives have been damaged, not just through serious injury, but through loss, trauma, and bereavement, leading to a huge cost both to our communities and to our public services, that is why we are calling this a crisis.

OTHER NEWS:

“It’s not a new crisis, it’s been with us for many years, and despite the efforts of all the public services over those years to improve the design of our roads, to educate road users, and to enforce measures to stop dangerous driving, the crisis persists.

“We know we have a severe problem, so we have come together with our partners in the Police, the Police and Crime Commissioner, Go Safe and the Trunk Road Agency to look at what is going wrong in Powys and what we can do together to stop the loss of lives on our roads.”

The group was established by the Powys Community Safety Partnership in 2023 with the aim of identifying options and initiatives at reducing the amount of people killed and seriously injured on Powys roads.

Their findings and recommendations will be shared with the Welsh Government’s Climate Change Deputy Minister.