Desmond Clifford
It’s hard not to feel quizzical about the Welsh Government’s transport announcement last week.
The Transport Minister announced an intention to build a third bridge across the Menai Strait linking Ynys Môn to the rest of Wales (or the rest of Wales to Ynys Môn, if you prefer). Good.
For the other end of the country, they announced a set of non-solutions and a non-decision on the country’s most pressing transport bottleneck, the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport.
A third Menai bridge has flicked on and off the agenda for years and the decision is linked to the planned new nuclear power station at Wylfa.
Logistics, resilience and security demand a third crossing. Without Wylfa, it would be a trickier decision to make. With Wylfa, it’s a no-brainer, and the sooner the better.
The Welsh Government and the various authorities must comply with planning, environmental and other legislation before a formal decision process. They need to find the money too.
The obvious thing is to raise a loan through the Treasury’s Debt Management Office – generally the cheapest form of money available to the public sector.
They’ll need co-operation from the UK Government since the loan will likely exceed the Welsh Government’s measly borrowing powers. The loan should be paid down over a long term, reflecting the benefit the bridge will bring to future generations, as well as making it affordable.
The UK Government should be co-operative, not least because it shares an interest in efficient links across the Menai Strait. The new-generation nuclear power station will be a vital national asset. In addition, the A55 to and from Holyhead – Ireland’s gateway to Britain – is a primary route.
Holyhead is second only to Dover for imports and exports and, if Andy Burnham is serious about a closer relationship with Europe, its importance only rises. The road haulage industry will be delighted to see improved resilience along the length of the A55, as will residents.
A new Menai crossing will help rebalance investment to north Wales. In a remarkable reversal, four of the nation’s party leaders now live along the A55 so there will never be a better time to press the case.
Thomas Telford took seven years to build the first bridge two hundred years ago, and the Britannia Bridge took four years a couple of decades later.
It’s hard for the amateurs among us to understand why bridge-building should get slower rather than quicker. Must we really expect a ten-year horizon for the third bridge? Ministers should be creating a sense of urgency rather than defending a tardy status quo.
The previous Labour governments favoured rail over roads. It was a good strategy, and the country is beginning to see the benefits.
Transport for Wales has the makings of a devolution success story: new trains, more routes and stations, more investment – and a transport authority that cares and is accountable to politicians in the Welsh Government and Senedd. It’s not perfect but it is progress.
The previous government also legislated to end the bus deregulation dating back to the 1980s. In future, public authorities will have greater influence in planning services strategically to meet community needs. Hopefully, the benefits of these measures will become progressively evident over time.
Policymakers have become twitchy about brand-new roads. Only militants argue against any new road building at all, but most agree that the threshold for new roads should be set high.
The Welsh Government’s statement about the M4 near Newport was confusing and raised more questions than answers.
The M4 is a proper mess and needs sorting. Labour governments huffed and puffed but basically kicked the can down the road. Local rail developments are welcome but are not the answer to the Brynglas Tunnels bottleneck. A busy three-lane motorway becomes two lanes to get through the tunnels and is left highly vulnerable to traffic snarl-ups. The solution is a short new stretch of relief road, or a wider road if engineering parameters allow.
An M4 relief road has been discussed for more than ten years. Mark Drakeford blocked the so-called “black route”. Left to himself, his predecessor Carwyn Jones would probably have approved it, but he timed out.
The Drakeford administration then pursued mitigation measures developed by Lord Burns, formerly of the Treasury. These measures are worth doing on their own merits but don’t answer the problem of the Brynglas Tunnels, the real source of the trouble.
Debate has moved on. The relief road blocked by Drakeford – the “black route” – is off the table. The Welsh Government is not proposing to bring it back. Another, shorter route south of Newport is the likely contender.
Dead end
The Welsh Government seems to have taken itself down a dead end. They propose closing, potentially, junctions 25, 26 and 27 of the M4 to limit access by citizens living around Newport, Caerleon and beyond.
It would turn the whole of south Gwent into a cul-de-sac. I’m not clear how motorists from, say, Blaenavon would access the M4. Most of Gwent will struggle to access the M4 except through circuitous routes jammed with displaced motorway traffic. How is this fair or sensible?
It’s strange politics to obstruct local citizens in favour of the drive-through motorist. If there’s proper consultation, local people will obviously reject the plan – so why waste time? Political capital is only worth expending on the things you really think need doing – it seems mad to expend it on things that won’t happen.
It might be different if the proposed junction closures were time-limited and linked to a firm decision to correct the M4 layout once and for all. At least then, motorists could see some light at the end of the Brynglas Tunnel. But the Welsh Government hasn’t got that far.
It’s been persuaded that it needs another eighteen months to think about it. Why on earth? This is the most scrutinised stretch of road in all of Wales. Every conceivable widening and circumvention scheme has been reviewed and tested to destruction several times over. The papers are all on the shelf. There’s no good reason why the Government can’t move swiftly to an M4 decision – one way or the other. They will have been in office for two years before a decision gets made, at best.
The announcement has the hallmarks of ministers spooked by government lawyers. I fear that compliance with the bureaucracy is becoming a feature of this administration, as it often was for previous governments.
Urgent change
I hoped for a different energy, a sense of urgent change. They need to be bolder and firmer. They have the ideas; what they now need is conviction and authority to plough ahead and implement. At this rate of progress, they’ll be taking the same ideas into the next election that they had for this one.
Enhancing the M4 is one of the few measures available to the Welsh Government that are likely to improve the economy in the long term.
The case is common sense. More efficient transport links obviously make investment more attractive. The reverse is equally obvious: difficult and unreliable transport links depress investment.
The problem is that the M4 around Newport was badly designed in the first place. It should always have been three lanes, and it was a false economy in the 1970s to construct a problem for future generations to resolve.
The decision facing the Welsh Government is not about conceiving a new road but correcting a badly constructed old one. We need a solution for all motorists, not one which makes life harder for people in Newport and Gwent.
Fixing the M4 doesn’t make you a climate change public enemy. Unless you’re setting a meaningful example by living in a teepee, the public policy challenge is how best to balance environmental protection with real-world economic need. The issue here is liveability – for residents of Gwent – and the proper functioning of the Welsh economy.
Investment
There’s limited value in establishing a Development Agency to stimulate investment without, in tandem, creating optimal investment conditions. Some businesses will want a motive to establish in Wales. Efficient transport is only one motive – but it’s a significant one.
We elect governments to look at the evidence and make decisions. Plaid shouldn’t waste a day. No one knows where politics will stand by 2030, but they should aim to leave their mark.
A new Menai bridge and a solution for the M4 would be a real legacy and nation-building at its literal best.
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