WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The First Minister made the right choice about the M4 Relief road. Personally I have been opposed to the project since the 1990's. It's been dropped more times over the years than a questionable county striker. Whats important now - is what happens next to alleviate the traffic problems that regularly clog up our city - the M4 Relief road would have done little to resolve them - despite the promises. If we are serious about giving people a realistic alternative to the car in and around Newport (and elsewhere) then we need decent integrated reliable public transport - without that nothing is going to change. 

What happens next is now of real significance - there are some small significant and long overdue projects - which would be big wins by way of infrastructure in Newport which should have been completed decades ago. A prime example is that of the proposed re-opening of the railway station at Caerleon - this has been in the structure plan since 1986 - but nothing has been done. Not to mention railway stations at Llanwern and Magor - approved in principle but with no ground broken as the years continue to pass. There are sone relatively simple potentially significant easy wins - which could have a big impact on the congestion problem in and around Newport and on the coastal plain. We need railway stations, with decent facilities and significant park and ride (with sensible walk to routes) at: 

• Caerleon / Ponthir , 
• Magor, and 
• Llanwern 

Across the south east, we can start with the Ebbw vale link to Newport needs to be re-timetabled and the line extended to Aberbeeg (as originally promised). Trains already periodically run on this line into Newport - when maintenance is under taken elsewhere. This reinstated service would enable connecting services to be run into Newport - giving commuters to Bristol and further afield an alternative means of getting to and from their places of work. 

The link to Ebbw Vale...

Within Newport there is a need to develop a decent system of public transport - based around a light rail / tram network which connects Bettws / Malpas, Duffryn and Pill and Alway / Ringland with the city centre and the railway station(s). At present the residents of Bettws, Pill, Duffryn and Alway / Ringland have no alternative but to drive, use the much reduced bus service or walk. Trams are not a pipe dream they are already an important part of integrated public transport systems in Merton (in south west London), Sheffield, Manchester and elsewhere. They would work equally well in Newport, Cardiff and Swansea and feed people into our main line railway stations. 

Elsewhere in the former county of Gwent there is much work that needs to be done. Our railway stations at Abergavenny, Pontypwl and Cwmbran, Caldicot , Severn Tunnel and Chepstow have all seen some degree of improvement but are barely fit for service. All these stations need improvement and need more stopping services and better facilities hand in hand with the development of secure reasonably priced park and ride facilities. There should be a feasibility study into reopening the branch line to Usk (with a station sited West of the River Usk (with decent park and ride facilities). Along with this there is a case for a park and ride railway station at Little Mill (especially with the proposed hoisting development at Mamihiiad). With all of this we need integrated ticketing - with one ticket coverage all modes of transport - it either well elsewhere in these islands - so why not here? 

The National Assembly also needs to work systematically and over the long term to get long distance freight traffic off our roads and back onto our railways. If you are shipping a container from Neath or Newport to Nuneaton or Namur it needs to be on a train not trundling around the motorway network. Successive Scottish government have had done success with encouraging and incentivising the movement of freight from road back to rail. Hand in hand with this initiative there is a real need to fundamentally change the delivery cycle from last minute to more planned delivery cycle. 

We need workable medium term solutions that will fundamentally impact on our options for moving about our city, the SE and the rest of Wales. What we don't need now is inaction, we gave had plenty of that, combined with poor if not down right bad decision making on the part if government at all levels, be it Westminster, National Assembly and local level - the consequences of which we are all living with every day in the south east and across the rest of Cymru / Wales. The tine for excuses us past - what's needed now is action on the ground to begin to sort out our congestion problems and to provide us with decent integrated transport that's fit for the 21st century rather the 20th. 

AND THEN YOU PAY FOR IT!

The proposed M4 relief road across the Gwent Levels is one of those questionable proposed projects that will devour public money with no tangible medium to longer term benefit. Projected costs have risen from some £900 million to £1.2 billion pounds - having personally listened to enough civil engineers - we can probably expect at least another 20% on top. 

There may well be a link between the rising costs, when it comes to the completion of public sector infrastructure projects and the cost relationship between the construction companies and the corridors of power in Westminster and Whitehall. The inability of public sector infrastructure projects to be completed on-time and on budget should be a concern for all of us - if for nothing else than the fact that it's our money that's being simultaneously both spent and raked up.  

Are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes? 

The Westminster government has (somewhat reluctantly in my opinion) actually devolved a degree of borrowing powers to the Welsh Government with a less than subtle heavy hint that they should be used to finance this expensive road project. This was backed up in the last Westminster budget with a stronger suggestion/ hint that any extra monies received from Westminster should be used to fund the M4 Relief Road. So much for Westminster having a grasp of the concept of devolution! 

Using the borrowing powers to finance this questionable road project would effectively tie the hands of future Welsh governments for some years into the future. We would be better off if the monies (£2 billion pounds could accomplish a great deal)were spent in the construction of a properly thought out South Wales metro which would provide realistic realistic reasonably priced alternatives for people trying to get to and from work. 

The construction of the Black route is a non starter, its lazy complacent short term thinking, it with the addition of potentially 6 million additional vehicle invents on and around the M4 will not deliver any benefits beyond the immediate short term (if even that). It's environmental destructive to both people and the rich human constructed environment that are the unique Gwent Levels. And it also just happens to strengthen those questionable links between Westminster and Whitehall and the large construction companies.

Historically the original M4 was intended to be built to the North of Caerleon / Lodge hill - with the provision of a connection for Newport's industrial and business areas (the SDR) Newport Council lobbied for the M4 to be built through northern Newport - it came with plenty of junctions - which we all then used to travel back and for from one side of Newport to another. 

Many (some 100,000) journeys on the M4 are defined as local, we use the M4 for local journeys around or across Newport as well as to get to and from work. The proposed M4 Relief road is no simple by-pass - it will have at least 4 junctions effectively setting itself up for more of the same. its odd sometimes how history can repeat or echo itself - and no one seems to notice.

There is no simple easy fix solutions to our traffic and infrastructure problems, they are fundamentally underlined by a degree of tolerated (by Westminster, Cathays Park and Cardiff Bay) economic weakness. The problems are not, however, unsurmountable if tackled incrementally, one start would be to build railway stations at Caerleon / Ponthir, Llanwern and Magor.

These new stations should be built with adequate cheap, secure, safe park and ride facilities, tied in with local bus services - along with a reasonable regular timetabled service between Ebbw Vale and Newport - and we may begin to see a real reduction in local journeys across and around Newport on the M4 as people have a real alternative to using their cars.

A well designed and well thought out South Wales Metro that actually serves all of South Wales rather simply feeding people in and out of Cardiff, is not what's been offered. The Metro is often portrayed as a big single entity of a project - it is complex and multi layered - but it can and should be constructed incrementally.  As the completion of parts of the project will have significant local (and regional) impact on congestion, pollution and travel to (and from) journeys to work across the south east. 

Hand in hand with developing the South Wales Metro, future Welsh governments should also bite the bullet and ensure that ticket prices are cheap and that any franchise holder ensures that there is adequate provision of rolling stock (preferably from the early 21st rather than the late 20th century). We need 21st century ticketing which will enable users to make use of multiple modes of transport with single source ticketing. 

All this is achievable, deliverable and measurable - what's is desperately needed is the political will and a real / actual commitment to getting the job done, rather than simply talking about it. Sadly we have seen precious little of that in recent years from successive Labour in Wales government in Cardiff Bay or from a rabidly Brexit focused Westminster.

OUR PLANNING PROBLEM?

Our planning system can perhaps best, if we are being honest, be described as dysfunctional. It's not working particularly well and has become the plaything of central government both in Cardiff Bay and in Westminster. Routine planning business is handled at a local level -  however if planning proposal is rejected or a planning inquiry comes out against a proposed development then there is more often than not another appeal (or perhaps more than one) to Cardiff. 

It could be said that the Welsh government is following the old and much criticised by many Welsh Office model - if in doubt approve. In recent years this has, where there had been concern or doubt or outright opposition (on the ground) to planning proposals - often controversial planning decisions have been rubber stamped by the Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff (while many things may have changed this mirrors pretty much exactly what went on when Wales was run by the old Welsh Office). 

In the case of the controversial proposed M4 across the Gwent levels the Welsh government has already made up (and declared) its mind before the public enquiry even began let alone delivered its ruling. Even though this publicly declared position runs contrary to many aspects of public policy for Cymru / Wales. The housing developments proposed around Cardiff (mostly on greenfield) sites are being resisted by local residents, despite the best efforts of Cardiff City Council (and the Labour in Wales government) to railroad them through regardless. 

Westminster ministers during the heady days of the Con Dem coalition openly favoured changing the planning rules (in England) to boost house building to 'revive the economy'. The Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff naturally favoured changing to planning rules in Wales to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. This is pretty much the same thing and the same end result - the weakening of the already weak planning system and at a more fundamental level the removal or overriding of democratic consent or meaningful democratic oversight from the planning process. 

Ironically that dubious intention / sentiment (in Wales at least) was perhaps aimed specifically at overturning those few occasions of late when our Local Authorities have rejected some developments (often at the behest of concerned local residents) rather than simply putting economic needs ahead of economic, environmental benefits and community cohesion. The green fields around our urban centres are doubly vulnerable to obsessive house building and over development - particularly as there is no designed Greenbelt land in Wales (beyond the occasional green wedge). 

In the last 15 years south Cwmbran has merged  with the top end of Malpas and plans are afoot to fill in the gap between Griffithstown (south Pontypool) and Cwmbran. This may have added some additional affordable housing (but not enough) at the cost of creating a strip of a continuous urban environment from south Newport through to Abersychan and New Inn. This not only failed so solve the shortage of affordable housing, it also did little to improve the quality of people's lives and added nothing by way of transport infrastructure beyond roads (something that added to already grim (at times  traffic congestion). 

Over the medium to long term the continuation of obsessive house building regardless of its impact is fundamentally bad news for those residents of south Monmouthshire, or Torfaen, who fought the plan and the good citizens of Abergavenny who fought to retain the livestock market. Not to mention those concerned residents of Carmarthen who have worried about the impact of over large housing developments or the residents of Holyhead who opposed a planned new marina development and those residents in Cardiff fighting the construction frenzy that threatens to envelope Cardiff and its surroundings.

We need to think outside the box, and look seriously look at the release of public land as self-build plots for affordable homes, to buy and to lease, and allow housing associations to build their own high-quality prefabricated homes as the Accord Housing Association successfully does in Walsall. This would also break the link between housing companies making fat profits and local government approved over development in and around our communities.

Our communities have been consistently (and continue to be) ill served by the planning system, by our local authorities (via the flawed system of Unitary Development Plans) and more recently by the Labour in Wales Welsh Government in Cardiff. With increasing pressure from over development community cohesion is under threat, along with increased demand on overstretched local amenities, our NHS and our green spaces.

An opportunity to address the shortage of affordable housing, to encourage more small-scale renewable energy projects, and to actively support small businesses in relation to the Planning Bill was missed. The process of actually addressing the flawed LDP (Local Development Plan) system, which does not deliver for local communities and fails to serve our national interests is long overdue, especially in relation to the structure of devolved government in Cymru / Wales.

Perhaps before constructing large numbers of new houses which often fail to tackle local housing needs we needs to take a long hard look at the number of empty properties something that remains largely unaddressed in many of our communities (a full Cymru / Wales wide survey to establish the levels of vacant properties within our communities is long overdue). 

We need a planning system that takes account of local housing needs, the environment (and seeks to create protected green belt land around and within our large and small urban communities). We also need to holistically plan and act for the whole of Wales – something that is just not happening at present. 

All of these things are something we just won’t get without fair funding for Wales, a full range of powers to shape and move our economic leavers. Never mire than now have we needed to change Wales  - that change will not come unless Labour in Wales lose power at the next set of National Assembly elections. We should remember that considering our nation has been effectively ruled locally by Labour in Wales for one hundred years that day can not come soon enough.