Community wins against speed limit hike outside childcare centre

Community power has won over a NSW government decision to raise the speed limit outside a childcare centre.

Residents in Pitt Town in Sydney's north west were shocked to arrive at the local school drop-off to find the speed limit outside the childcare centre had been raised from 60km/h to 80km/h.

"Who makes that decision? Who ticked that box to say, 'yeah let's raise it by 20km in front of a pre-school'," mum Katie Mulligan said.

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Residents in the area had long been campaigning for the speed limit to be dropped in the area after a truck flipped in the centre of town.

While the rest of the area had the speed limit dropped from 60km/h to 50km/h, on the approach to town, where Milestones Early Learning Centre sits it was raised to 80.

"I thought it was very dangerous. The school has a lot of children. You never know if the kids are just going to run across the road," mum Ashley Sant said as she dropped off her son.

The community swung into action, contacting the New South Wales Roads Minister John Graham over the dangerous change.

Chris Bell from the local progress association led the charge.

"Luckily people power, we were able to get a lot of people involved, especially you guys, thank you A Current Affair," he said.

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Just 48 hours after the speed limit was increased, it decreased again.

Crews came out in the middle of the night to change the limit this time down to 50km/h.

Graham then fronted our cameras to admit he got it wrong.

"I think there's no question this is a mistake," he said.

"I think it's important to own up when something like this happens.

"I'm really grateful that transport has addressed this, it's a lot quicker than sometimes these problems get fixed, but that was necessary."