The biggest factor in deciding if huge road project ever happens
SKATES ‘KEEN TO DELIVER’ ON BIG TRANSPORT SCHEMES
WELSH Government Transport Secretary Ken Skates says he is determined to deliver on “big road projects” and spoke about the factor that could put one massive scheme back on track.
The country’s roads review saw a raft of major transport projects scrapped in North Wales from the Menai crossing to the Llanbedr bypass and Flintshire ‘Red Route.’
Those decisions were taken by then transport minister Lee Waters based on advice from a group of transport and environment experts appointed by Welsh Government.
Those decisions last year were criticised by Ken Skates, then a backbencher, but made transport minister by Vaughan Gething, a role he has retained under the new leadership of First Minister Eluned Morgan.
While not announcing a complete U-turn he has indicated that tweaks could be made to projects to improve their green credentials as well as putting more emphasis on the economic value of schemes.
He spoke about progress made and said when it came to a third Menai crossing there was one factor that could decide if it happens.
That is the stalled Wylfa B development near Cemaes which if progressed would require increased capacity on the road network during the building of the multi-billion pound plant. The previous UK Government named Wylfa as the preferred location for the next major nuclear plant in the UK.
It has been reported this week that this in under review by the new UK Government - with the potential for the site to be used to house a number of small modular reactors(smrs) instead. Either scheme would require multi-billion pound investments and strengthened road capacity and also potentially deliver a cash boost towards a new crossing to add to the existing Menai Suspension and Britannia bridges.
Mr Skates said: “The future of the Menai crossing - a third Menai crossing - is largely dependent on Wylfa Newydd and whether that particular project goes ahead because capacity has to be there for that huge increase in traffic. I think Wylfa is particularly important to determining whether the crossing goes ahead.”
In an update on reassessing the wider roads review, he added: “We’ve been looking at road tests from the roads review and we’ve been assessing how it can truly enable alternatives to private vehicles, drive down carbon emissions but also get the economy moving. So we are looking at how the tests apply in practice and we are also looking at some of the projects that were paused or cancelled with a view of ensuring that where there are tweaks that can be made to those projects, and if they can go ahead
they should go-ahead.
“We can make changes to the road tests to enable projects to go forward, we can encourage the best of
emerging technologies, practices and materials to drive down carbon.”
But he added: “The biggest challenge we’ve got at
the moment is with the state of public finances that is the biggest challenge that we face.
“The difficulty that we face is that we’ve got a very big maintenance backlog as a result of years and years of austerity. That has to be prioritised - fixing potholes for example, repairing pavements, repairing our roads, that has to be the priority at the moment.
“However I am determined to make sure that we deliver on some of those big road projects that have been carefully planned out in the past including the Queensferry crossing over the River Dee which will go ahead.”