Below Speech delivered on 15th July 2009 during the Welsh Conservatives debate on Welsh Transport Policy
| William Graham: Throughout this year, those giving evidence to the Finance Committee inquiry into funding road infrastructure, from the Wales TUC to CBI Wales, unanimously agree on a fundamental fact that improving our road network is one of the most important steps that can be taken towards developing the Welsh economy, opening up access to employment opportunities and unlocking the potential of our tourism industry. The necessity to invest in these improvements, and a potential solution, are graphically demonstrated in south-east Wales. |
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Professor Stuart Cole put the delays down to other factors, including a lack of funding. He argued that the reprioritisation of schemes reflected the Wales transport strategy’s integrated approach to transport investment, which was a positive move, but he added: |
| 'There is a pattern of delayed start dates which suggests there may be insufficient funding.’ |
| How prescient that remark was in view of today’s statement. |
| Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Gareth Jones, Chairman of the Assembly’s Enterprise and Learning Committee, which scrutinises transport policy, commented: |
| 'For too long under-investment in transport infrastructure across Wales has left many communities isolated and unable to access economic opportunities.’ |
| How well that chimes for the A465 and the A472. The Assembly Government must end its ideological aversion to private finance. The Welsh Assembly Government should investigate private-public partnership and use the M4 relief road as a testing ground for a made-in-Wales solution that takes greater account of sustainability and not-for-profit principles. |
| Particularly telling were the remarks of the common appraisal framework study into the M4 relief road around Newport. It saw |
| 'merit in pursuing improvements to public transport which [would] be economically beneficial and are likely to be viable’, |
| but |
| 'concluded that improvement in public transport alone will not provide the capacity on the motorway to meet demand.’ |
| We must remember that if rail freight were to increase by 100 per cent, taking freight from the roads, it would reduce road freight by less than 10 per cent. |
| According to the Wales TUC, the A465 is an important economic driver across the south Wales Valleys, and an important link from Swansea and west Wales through to the English midlands. Any delay in the A465 dualling project will have a severe impact on the regeneration of the Heads of the Valleys. Today, we learned that it will take at least 11 years to complete. |
| Political expediency seems to dictate the north-south priority, rather than the economic necessity of the vital east-west transport routes. Upgrading the A472, for example, from the Crown roundabout at the junction with the A469, is not mentioned in any transport infrastructure schedule, despite this road being a vital link to the new £127 million Ystrad Fawr hospital. |
| In December 2003, Peter Hain, in one of his reincarnations as Secretary of State for Wales, proposed that the Assembly consider a tolled M4 relief road. |
| We all know that Wales is on the periphery of the European Union, and we have great difficulty, geographically, because we are a high-cost economy that is competing with low-cost economies at the other end of the European Union—the wrong end of the golden banana, as it were. They will also be attempting to get good quality transport links to the European Union’s big central markets. |
| The Federation of Small Businesses in Wales called the M4 decision 'ridiculous’, saying that |
| 'we just don’t seem able to think into the future’, |
| adding that |
| 'anybody using that road regularly knows it should be in the top five priorities’. |
| Bethan Jenkins: How do you respond to the report by Zac Goldsmith, a Tory candidate, in which he says, |
| 'Given the very high costs and doubtful benefits of motorway widening schemes…there is a strong argument for putting such schemes on hold’? |
| Where do you stand on that position? |
| William Graham: This is not a widening scheme. You may remember that there are tunnels that have only two lanes in each direction, and they are a constant bottleneck. They will be a long reminder of your party’s policy today. |
| The Wales TUC is not exactly always the Conservatives’ friend, but it states: |
| 'We believe that new M4 around Newport is, by head and shoulders, the most key route and scheme for the economy. …it is hard to see another scheme which is of such economic importance.’ |
| We know that congestion along the M4 motorway costs the Welsh economy £1 million an hour. |
| There is some harebrained scheme now about the southern distributor road. I remind the Deputy First Minister that it has 10 roundabouts and six sets of traffic lights. No commercial operator will allow its lorries to go along that route. The use of the Llanwern steelworks road may yet be resisted by St Modwen Properties plc and Persimmon Homes, as it is the main distributor road for their development of 3,000 houses. |
| I also remind the Deputy First Minister that his party played a significant part in keeping those essential roads to communities in Newport open when the southern distributor road was planned. |
| Perhaps the Deputy First Minister was influenced by the petition. Had he actually seen it, he would have found it quite remarkable. Of the 300 names that I looked at, 13 had addresses in south-east Wales. I did not realise that Mickey Mouse could write, but he certainly gave a large number of addresses. More particularly, Pope Pius X signed the petition. As he died in 1914, the petition has as much credibility as your proposals today. |
Full text of the debate can be found at: