Lee Waters: There's nothing more I love than travelling around Wales visiting bypasses with my colleagues from the Senedd, so we'll see if the diary allows. I'm afraid the—. It's a cross-border scheme, as you say—only 5 per cent of it is in Wales, the rest being in England. And there are ongoing discussions between Highways England and Welsh Government officials about moving to the next stage, and...
Lee Waters: Thank you. As Ken Skates rightly says, junction 1 was not included as part of the roads review schemes that it has looked at, but the other junctions were. The proposals that have been put forward by the local council for junction 1 would involve a large remodelling of the junction, which would be carbon intensive and would increase road capacity. So, this is relevant to the recommendations...
Lee Waters: The roads review panel has submitted its final report to the Welsh Government about its findings for each of the road schemes that it has reviewed, and this includes the A483 junctions 3-6 improvements. I will be making a further announcement on the next steps of the roads review by the end of the month.
Lee Waters: Well, thank you for highlighting this important issue. The water companies do have a duty to produce water resource management plans every five years and these must adhere to the Welsh Government's principles, which provide a high-level framework for the companies to follow in developing their plans. Dŵr Cymru has a commitment to reduce the average per-capita consumption of its domestic...
Lee Waters: Well, thank you. The Member raises a really important issue. As she says, our water system is under continued stress because of man-made climate change and it is going to get worse. The messages coming out of COP last week in Egypt were quite distressing about the state of the science and the level of the severity of the threat to us. So, conserving our water and treating it as the scarce...
Lee Waters: Thank you, and, Llywydd, I'd like to pass on the apologies of Julie James for not being able to be here this afternoon. We announced in July our strategic priorities and objectives statement. This sets a clear mandate for Ofwat to incentivise the efficient use of water resources by encouraging companies to reduce water consumption.
Lee Waters: Public transport connects people to one another, binds communities together and enables businesses to grow and expand. 'Llwybr Newydd: the Wales Transport Strategy 2021', sets out our plans for an accessible, sustainable and efficient transport system across the nation.
Lee Waters: The concept of regenerative ocean farming is an emerging industry being trialled in Wales. Whilst no formal assessment has been undertaken, we hope to see tangible benefits to biodiversity through increased nursery habitat benefiting some species and improved water quality. We will continue to assess the evidence as it develops.
Lee Waters: My officials have been in discussions with local authorities and school transport providers throughout Wales regarding the general cost of school transport, as they continue to discharge their statutory duties in providing home-to-school transport to learners.
Lee Waters: The south Wales metro is an ambitious, multimillion-pound project that will transform the way we all travel, with focus on rail, bus, active travel, and integrated transport. Throughout all of the south Wales metro, we will electrify 170 km of track and upgrade all our stations and signalling.
Lee Waters: Thank you again for the tone of that contribution, because I fully recognise that people are distressed and annoyed and concerned about the fallout from this decision. I'm particularly aware of the situation of the hospital. I think we've seen, obviously, because of the sudden nature of the announcement, and the inability for people to plan and think ahead, and I hope that will settle down as...
Lee Waters: Thank you. Well, certainly, on your last point, I'd appreciate the help of all Members to make sure that we're able to communicate these messages with honesty and subtlety to constituents. There has been a somewhat hysterical tone amongst some political parties over the weekend to try to create some point-scoring, which I think is deeply inappropriate and doesn't help people to understand the...
Lee Waters: Certainly. In terms of the points the Member made about alternative suggestions, that is something that the Britannia bridge contingency plans—which I mentioned and which I've currently been drafting, looking at options—would look at, to look at the whole range of things that we could do. In terms of cycling access, one of the things that's being looked at now as part of this two-week...
Lee Waters: Well, I'd like to thank the Member for the way in which he has engaged with this issue, and I understand his concerns, and those questions are fair. I will try and answer some of them now. I will write to him with those I haven't answered, and, as I say, we will set up a meeting for him and others to speak with the Welsh Government chief engineer to talk through the detailed questions and...
Lee Waters: Well, as tempting as it is, Llywydd, to engage in that contribution in the same tone as it was offered, I shall not do that. I think that was a very poorly judged intervention on what is a very serious subject. There are regular inspections of the bridge to industry standard, far higher than to the normal highway network, which is a risk-based approach. Inspections of the bridge are not...
Lee Waters: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd, and thank you for the opportunity to provide Members with an update on the Menai bridge. As Members will know, at 2 p.m. on Friday 21 October, the Welsh Government made the decision to close the Menai bridge to all traffic with immediate effect. The decision was not made lightly; it was made on safety grounds after clear advice from structural engineers and...
Lee Waters: Well, thank you for the question. As you know, there's a legal requirement under the learner travel Measure to provide transport based on a threshold of three miles, and I appreciate the point made by Luke Fletcher that that is sometimes too far for many children. I myself walked with children from Ysgol y Gwendraeth from Tumble to their school before the lockdown, a three-mile journey. They...
Lee Waters: Yes. A more detailed review of the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008 will take place shortly.
Lee Waters: Well, I couldn't agree more. We are living with the legacy of a culture where cars were put before people, and we had a whole highway network designed around making cars go faster, rather than thinking about how we encourage people to walk or cycle. As Jenny Rathbone knows, some 10 per cent of all journeys are under one mile. Now, these are journeys that could be walked or cycled in many...
Lee Waters: As we discussed earlier, we are introducing legislation to put into place a better, more coherent bus system. The challenges are multiple. As he pointed out, many people are reliant on the bus service. We know a quarter of all households don't own a car. Transport for Wales's research of its own passengers suggests that something like 80 per cent of people who travel on the bus don't have a...
