<p>The Valleys Taskforce</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 4 April 2017.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:14, 4 April 2017

Well, transport is key and that’s why the metro is so important. It takes an unacceptably long time at the moment to travel from Treherbert down to Cardiff. The service is also not seen as reliable and the leader of Plaid Cymru has given an example of that happening. From next year, we of course will specify the franchise. We’ve not had an opportunity to do that before. We will also be able to move forward with the metro, to have more convenient, more comfortable and more frequent services and also, of course, to connect the Rhondda Fach via bus services into Porth, for example, to make sure that bus services connect more frequently with the train services going through the Rhondda Fawr.

Now, that is one way of getting people to jobs in Cardiff, but it’s not just about that. We know that 11 million people go through Cardiff Central every year. It is about making sure that it’s easy to get from Cardiff up into the Valleys as well, so that investors don’t see the Valleys as being physically distant from Cardiff, which I’ve heard. They’re not, we know they’re not, but that’s the way, sometimes, they have been perceived and we want to make sure that we have a transport network that shows that our Valleys communities are able to attract more investment in the future, as well as people also being able to access employment wherever that might be.