Along with other businesses, pharmacies in Wales are discovering the unintended consequences of the new 20mph speed limit introduced on September 17.

There has been strong opposition to the new limit, which lowered the speed limit from 30mph to 20 mph in urban areas and applies to all restricted roads (those which have street lights on them, placed no more than 200 yards apart).

Over a quarter of a million people petitioned against the new speed limit withing days of it being introduced, but so far the Welsh Government has refused to bow to pressure.

Pharmacist Phil Bullen, who runs Wellness Pharmacy on the Newport Road in Cardiff, is quoted in Daily Telegraph on December 4 explaining some of the consequences. Deliveries from wholesalers are coming an hour later than before leading to prescription delays, and the number of deliveries to housebound clients has fallen.

“We deliver to housebound clients. We were probably doing about 30 [deliveries] a day before. We’re managing to get into the 20s but we definitely can’t do more than 30,” he says.

He added that the £32m spent by Wales’s devolved administration lowering the speed limit could have gone towards a better cause. “Personally I believe the money spent on this would have been better spent on the NHS or educating pedestrians on how to use the roads.”