Welsh Deputy Climate Change Minister set the direction for the future of transport in Wales
today with a statement that puts climate change at the heart of
decision-making.
The Deputy Minister told the Senedd "we will not get to Net Zero
unless we stop doing the same thing over and over" as he set out
findings from some key documents that shape the future of road
building in Wales.
The new documents include the findings of the Roads Review Panel
– an independent expert group tasked with assessing more than 50
road-building projects – and the Welsh Government’s National
Transport Delivery Plan.
Together, the documents show the status of 59 projects in total
including those going ahead, those not progressing at this stage
and those replaced by revised works.
Speaking in the Senedd, said:
When we published the Wales Transport Strategy two years ago, we
committed to start upon a llwybr newydd - a new path.
The publication of this Roads Review, along with the National
Transport Delivery Plan, and our new Roads Policy Statement,
represents a major step forward on that journey.
Let me be very clear at the outset, we will still invest in
roads. In fact, we are building new roads as I speak - but we are
raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to
transport problems.
We are also investing in real alternatives, including investment
in rail, bus, walking and cycling projects.
Of course, doing that in an age of austerity is very challenging.
Not only are we not getting our share of HS2 investment, but the
UK Government is pushing many bus services over a cliff edge, as
well as slashing our capital investment budgets.
Even if we’d wanted to keep progressing all the road schemes in
the pipeline we just do not have the money to do so. Our capital
budget will be 8% lower next year in real terms as a result of
the UK Government’s failure to invest in infrastructure.
With fewer resources it becomes even more important to prioritise
and the Roads Review helps us to do that.
The roads review was announced by
the Deputy Minister in June 2021 freezing all road
building projects.
An independent panel was then
created and tasked with reviewing the projects
considered part of the review.
The panel, led by transport consultant Dr Lynn Sloman MBE,
presented its findings to Welsh Government in September 2022 and
were made public today.
The findings come with some key recommendations from the panel,
including four new road building tests.
Going forward, the Welsh Government will only consider future
road investment for projects that:
- Reduce carbon emissions and support a shift to public
transport, walking and cycling
- improve safety through small-scale change
- help the Welsh Government adapt to the impacts of climate
change
- provide connections to jobs and areas of economic activity in
a way that maximises the use of public transport, walking and
cycling
In developing schemes, the focus should be on minimising carbon
emissions, not increasing road capacity, not increasing emissions
through higher vehicle speeds and not adversely affecting
ecologically valuable sites.
The Deputy Minister continued:
Our approach for the last 70 years is not working.
As the review points out the by-pass that was demanded to relieve
congestion often ends up leading to extra traffic, which in time
brings further demands for extra lanes, wider junctions and more
roads.
Round and round we go, emitting more and more carbon as we do it
and we will not get to Net Zero unless we stop doing the same
thing over and over.
When and I took up our new roles, we
made clear that in this decade Wales has to make greater cuts in
emissions than we have in the whole of the last three decades
combined.
Greater cuts in the next ten years than the whole of the last 30
- that’s what the science says we need to do if we are to
future-proof Wales.
The UN General Secretary has warned that unless we act decisively
now we face a ‘climate catastrophe’.
If we are to declare a Climate and Nature Emergency, legislate to
protect the Well-being of Future Generations, and put into law a
requirement to reach NetZero by 2050 - we simply have to be
prepared to follow through.
A small amount of the 59 projects have been classed as local
authority schemes or economic development schemes.
The 15 local authority schemes will be considered in future
transport grant funding rounds, subject to meeting the future
road building tests and our commitments in the Well-being of
Future Generations Act.
Councillor and Councillor Llinos Medi
will lead a group to develop guidance on how we link economic
development sites to the transport network, that are consistent
with the future tests for road building and the Wales Transport
Strategy.
The Panel’s report also mentions maintaining existing roads and
supporting the movement of freight.
The Deputy Minister published a Written Statement today on the
Welsh Government’s approach to road maintenance and committed to
publishing a freight plan later in the year.
