Some years ago, it was decided that there should be an additional junction at Broughton off the A55 to serve Airbus and the newly built retail park. The new junction, in conjunction with the old one, results in the traffic being taken off the A55 at the top of Broughton village and then through the village. There’s no way to travel west from the retail park at Broughton and Airbus without going through the village. The poor planning of that junction is now causing real congestion in and around Broughton. Looking along the A55, you’ll see other examples of very, very poor planning: placing roundabouts at Penmaenmawr and other places was, as far as I’m concerned, just daft. It resulted in creating a point at which there’s an increased risk of accidents and congestion, which is now necessitating their removal.

The motion mentions that there’s a lack of hard shoulder in places. I struggle to think, actually, of a stretch along the A55 that does actually have a proper hard shoulder. Most of it doesn’t, meaning that broken-down vehicles have nowhere to go. The volume of wagons on the A55 essentially reduces the A55 to a single carriageway. The lack of forward planning at the Britannia bridge at Anglesey resulted in a dual carriageway either side of the bridge, but the bridge has a single carriageway, causing congestion on both sides. These and many other issues have been well known to the people of north Wales and those who visit there for many, many years. It’s high time that we heard some solid plans and concrete proposals from the Welsh Government as to precisely what improvements are going to be made to the A55 and when they’re going to be actually made. Thank you.