Conservative Senedd member for the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend Andrew RT Davies has criticised Plaid Cymru’s plans to address congestion on the M4 around Newport by closing the motorway’s junctions.
A statement by Deputy Minister for Transport Mark Hooper confirmed the potential closure of Junction 27 at High Cross, Junction 26 at Malpas and Junction 25 at Caerleon.
Mr Davies blamed gridlock on Plaid Cymru and Labour’s decision to block the M4 relief road, a decision he said was taken for “separatist reasons”.
He said building the proposed Black Route would have provided necessary capacity and brought huge economic benefits to South Wales
Mr Davies said:
“Plaid Cymru separatists’ plans to close M4 junctions around Newport will add to chaos, not alleviate it.
“The M4 Relief Road would have solved all capacity issues, but Plaid and Labour Senedd members blocked it for separatist reasons.
“Their insistence on avoiding closer ties with England at all costs has cost South Wales vital infrastructure and the job opportunities and improved living standards that come with it.”
ENDS
NOTE: Please find below the Senedd’s record of proceedings from Wednesday 7th October
https://record.senedd.wales/Plenary/16313#C776120
Andrew R.T. Davies
16:20:27
Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister, on the M4 relief road in particular. Can I ask two things? First, you talked about disruption while this work is ongoing. What level of disruption are motorists going to have to endure? Because at the moment the road is gridlocked most days and, at its worst, it can be gridlocked back to the Severn bridge, or to Cardiff Gate if you’re travelling east. So, any potential disruption is going to have a devastating impact. And secondly, the really important thing here is capacity. The issue you’ve got here is that the modelling that was done for the inquiry into the black route showed an 18 per cent growth rate in traffic over 15 years. You’ve talked of a 10 per cent reduction. That’s still an 8 per cent growth in traffic using the M4 as it’s currently constructed, or as you’ve outlined today. The real issue here is not the failure of body politic, as you put it, to agree the solution; it’s the Labour Party supported by your party’s refusal to build the black route. Because if we had the black route, that capacity would be there and the economy of south Wales and the wider region would be doing so much better.
Mark Hooper
16:21:34
Can I help the Member with the second part of that question? The 10 per cent improvement was in 2042 expected traffic volumes. So, it’s a 10 per cent improvement on them, which has built some of those increases before. So, it does make a valid and important difference. Is it enough? I don’t think it is, which is the reason we’ve got this 18-month piece of work as well to look at other longer term solutions alongside this. But the point is we’re not going to stop.
You talked about disruption, and I think this is a really important point, so thank you for raising it. For too long, the M4 and the rest of our strategic road network hasn’t been maintained in the manner that it should have been. Maintaining a network is like maintaining a boiler at home. It needs to be serviced. If you don’t service it when it does work, the problems manifest. We want to make sure that we grasp that and deal with these issues. Because what I don’t want is for us to have a situation where the M4 is closed for much longer because we haven’t dealt with the issues at hand. It’s an important thing that we do. It’s also a serious thing that we do. I’m hopeful that we get broad support so that we solve and maintain our networks as we should. It’s one of our biggest assets on our balance sheet.
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