Lee Waters: Thank you. As you say, the roads review is looking at the red route, along with 54 other schemes, and it's doing that methodically, and it will report in the summer. So, we shouldn't second-guess what the outcome of that process will be, because I'm assuming there will be road schemes going ahead, but I'm also assuming that a large number of them will not be. So, it's entirely reasonable to...
Lee Waters: Thank you. Our multimillion-pound north Wales metro programme will transform rail, bus and active travel services across the area. I have also announced a north Wales transport commission that will develop a pipeline of transport schemes for north Wales, including Alyn and Deeside.
Lee Waters: Well, yes, as the Member notes, the bridge at Llanellen is a recognised flood-sensitivity site and does sometimes close during storm events or heavy rainfall. The situation has improved there after drainage work was carried out and the road has now opened quicker than previously because of that work. The WelTAG process, as you know, is meant to be an open-minded process—it's not meant to...
Lee Waters: Thank you. In recent years, we've improved the existing drainage at Llanellen to help with quickening recovery and the reopening time frame for the A4042 in the event of flooding. This year, we will also be conducting a Welsh transport appraisal guidance stage 1 to identify longer term options to help address the flooding issues.
Lee Waters: Thank you for tabling the motion and for the range of contributions. I think the contributions show that, despite a clear consensus on the problem, there is no real clear consensus on the solution, because this is complex. There is a whole range of forces coming together. This is fundamentally about a changing marketplace, and James Evans in his contribution championed the role of the market...
Lee Waters: Well, I'd like to thank Llyr Gruffydd for his supportive comments and his endorsement of the broad approach that we are taking. And it will be right that there'll be a role for challenge and scrutiny of all of this, and it's important that the Burns commission operates in that way, as it did in the south, as, indeed, the roads review is. The roads review is putting all of this information in...
Lee Waters: Well, Llywydd, it's not four months since I joined Janet Finch-Saunders on the steps of the Senedd to send a strong message to world leaders at the Conference of the Parties on the need to take dramatic action to tackle climate change. I've heard many times in the Chamber Janet Finch-Saunders lecture me how the Welsh Government wasn't going far enough, wasn't going fast enough to deal with...
Lee Waters: Yes. The roads review panel recommended that, instead of progressing the project in its current form, there's a strong case for considering a review of the whole of the north Wales corridor, as recommended in the UK Government's union connectivity review's final report. I accepted those recommendations, and last week set up the north Wales transport commission, chaired by Lord Burns.
Lee Waters: I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for his comments and for his feedback from his committee, and I'm glad that we've agreed a way forward, and I hope that Members are able to support the regulations.
Lee Waters: Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion. As the Minister for finance has just said in her debate, one of the core functions of the new corporate joint committees is to deliver a duty to prepare a regional transport plan, and as we've just heard, this duty will transfer later in 2022. And what I'm seeking to do today is to modify legislation that refers to the local authority duty to prepare local...
Lee Waters: James Evans, in his exchanges with Hefin David, and in his original contribution, posed the question: why didn't the Labour Government of the late 1990s rip up the fragmented system? I think what they did was a genuine attempt to use a partnership approach with operators to develop a different way of doing it. But I think we can say that partnership approach hasn't worked. We can see now in...
Lee Waters: Thank you very much to the Members who've spoken and for bringing this debate. Again, I think we've shown in this Chamber cross-party concern and support for the plight of public transport and a will to improve it. I think that that is a precious thing that we should nurture. No doubt, we will disagree on some of the details and much of the debate has been spent on diagnosing who is to blame...
Lee Waters: That's certainly our ambition too, but we are still awaiting a decision from the UK Government in respect of the funding submitted under the Restoring Your Railway scheme, which will allow us to progress our plans to take forward the reopening of the Abertillery spur. Rhianon Passmore will know that rail infrastructure is not devolved to Wales, but it was the Welsh Government that reopened...
Lee Waters: We've provided a £70 million loan to Blaenau Gwent council to work with Network Rail to enable an hourly Newport to Ebbw Vale service from December 2023. Our longer term ambition is the provision of four services per hour on the line.
Lee Waters: I can confirm what the Member says: the bridge definitely will be replaced and we're hoping it'll be in place a year from now, between late March and April 2023. It has taken longer than expected. As Hefin David said, it was severely damaged by a lorry and then had to be torn down. The process that it's had to go through, with a design bespoke for this particular location, has been complex,...
Lee Waters: We support active travel routes in Caerphilly by providing the council with a core allocation from our active travel fund each year, and by offering the opportunity to apply for additional funding through a range of grants. In this financial year, Caerphilly has been allocated over £1.4 million.
Lee Waters: As I mentioned in the answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth, we recognise that climate change means that these events are going to occur more frequently and they do pose a problem to our critical infrastructure, and we are committed to doing what we can to address that. The question the Member asks specifically about natural drainage solutions is a really important one, because I think we over-rely...
Lee Waters: Yes. I noticed it was raised both in First Minister's questions and in Prime Minister's questions by Simon Baynes—erroneously, because he's blaming the Welsh Government for something that is the responsibility of the local authority. I understand the temptation to play politics on this, but he ought to do his homework a little better before casting aspersions. We are in discussions with the...
Lee Waters: Well, the Member is right. This is very real indeed, and we know it's going to get worse as climate change intensifies and making our roads resilient to the threats of storms and also the impact of extreme heat is one of the things we need to do as we adapt to climate change, which is part of our net-zero strategy. It's one of the reasons why we've set up the roads review, so we shift funding...
Lee Waters: I note that no good wishes were offered to me as I recover from my cold, but I'll put that to one side. The Welsh Government have measures in place to manage trunk roads that are affected by weather events, including flooding. The local road network is, of course, the responsibility of local authorities who are provided with grant funding by the Welsh Government to maintain and ensure the...
