Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:53 pm on 28 March 2017.
Leader of the house, I wondered whether we could have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure on the trunk road maintenance programme in north Wales. Many of my constituents and visitors to north Wales were massively inconvenienced over the weekend as a result of some of the roadworks on the A55 in the Conwy tunnels and, indeed, in Old Colwyn, in my own constituency, and that led to 13-mile tailbacks on Mothering Sunday, with people being cooped up in their cars for up to an hour and a half simply to travel the short distance of just three miles. Clearly, that’s unacceptable. The problem was further compounded because, of course, Network Rail was also doing work on the north Wales railway line, so there was more traffic on the roads, and I think it is imperative that there’s better planning between the road maintenance teams and the Network Rail teams in order to avoid that sort of coming together of these sorts of maintenance works. So, it would be useful to have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure on how he intends to change the discussions and communications, particularly between Network Rail and his teams in the future.