Railwatch 081 - October 1999

South Wales

By Peter Clark and Robert Neville

Alternatives to roadbuilding The branch made a submission to the Welsh Office on a report commissioned to examine alternatives to building a duplicate motorway through the Gwent Levels (site of many SSSIs) and around the south of Newport. We welcomed the fact that alternatives were being considered and opened to public consultation. This has not been the case hitherto. The study looked at three scenarios, building the road, enhancing public transport and traffic demand management. These were evaluated against a lengthy list of criteria in the categories of transport, environmental and economic performance. Overall the best results appear to be realisable in a hybrid scenario which contains elements of enhanced public transport with some traffic demand management. The former would include many of the developments we have been pressing for, including reopening Ebbw Vale, Newport, opening new stations (and developing new services) in the Newport area, light rail for Cardiff and infrastructure improvement on several lines to allow higher speeds. The Welsh Assembly will now have to reach a decision on this. Pressure to build the duplicate motorway is enormous, but so too is the opposition, and the Assembly is supposed to be embracing sustainable development. Meanwhile the existence of a report confirming that realistic alternatives are available must be a good sign.

Welsh AssemblyThis body assumed its formal powers on 1 July and soon realised its lack of influence over rail will make it difficult to achieve an integrated transport system in Wales. A practical example of the obstacles in the way of rail development was the collapse of proposals for enhanced north-south Wales services (via Wrexham) from May 2000. A funding gap apparently existed between what Wales & West required to run the service and what the Assembly and Welsh Office was willing to give. Neither the Franchise Director nor the north Wales local authorities would bridge the gap. Later news was that First North Western may be interested in operating the service, but no further information was available at time of writing. It is essential that the Assembly continues its efforts to overcome the various problems. If it is thwarted in its legitimate aspirations for rail development there is a real danger that it will turn its back on rail and consider only road solutions for which it does have budgetary control. Meanwhile, we have produced a briefing paper on topics we would like the Assembly to consider in the short to medium term, and have requested a meeting with the Minister, Peter Law, to present it.

Cardiff Millennium Stadium We were unhappy with Cardiff Railway's arrangements for the opening event in June. Although it is to be commended for attempting to deal with anticipated crowds for a special event, it was done in a manner such that ordinary travellers were potentially seriously disadvantaged. A special timetable operated all day from 06.00 (although kick-off was not until 17.00!), and was very poorly communicated. Many trains ran earlier, some lines had reduced frequency (but longer trains), there was a failure to connect into the mainline network, and no information at all about whether the various bus links would still connect with the retimed trains. We have made our reservations known to Cardiff Railway and hope some lessons will be learned for next time.

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