Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:27 pm on 28 November 2018.
First of all, can I thank Suzy Davies for giving me a minute in this debate? I want to make two interrelated points. The first is that we need bus-rail interchanges at all rail stations, and the buses need to come and leave at the right times. Far too often, the buses go at a different time to the trains, and that means that it becomes less convenient to use a bus to get to the railway station. Once somebody has undertaken part of their journey by car, especially if they've come—. In my case, if I were to use my car to come by train to here, I'd either drive for 20 minutes in the wrong direction, or, I'd drive for 20 minutes until I get to Port Talbot, which is just under half my journey—about 40 per cent of my journey. It doesn't seem worthwhile changing the mode of transport when you've travelled that far. So, I think it's important that we have bus-rail interchanges and that we make it convenient for people.
The second point is about having a strategy to move people by rail between local places. This is reverse Beeching. For those who don't know what Beeching did, he got rid of all the branch lines because the main lines were making a profit, without realising that the people coming on the branch lines were getting on the main line, so all of a sudden, the main line's not making a profit either. I want to reverse that.
And also, we've got a lot of what used to be old stations. I know I mention Landore often, but you've got a lot of stations the trains go through at the moment—stations that exist. I know they need refurbishing, but they exist. I think we need to look at more of these. I'm going to drift into Jeremy Miles's area now, because there are some in Neath, as well, which exist on the main line. They could just be reopened. There will be some cost in the refurbishment, but they can be reopened. We need to get people out of their cars, but let's not do it when people getting out of their cars is inconveniencing them. We're asking them to do something for the environment that is going to hurt them. I want to ask people to do things for the environment that benefit them as well, because they're more likely to do it.
As I've said many times, we need a strategy for public transport in the Swansea bay city region. Can I just make two very brief points? One is: I think it's very important that Neath station does stay on the main line and it doesn't get left off. And, of course, a Swansea parkway—the Welsh Development Agency planned it from the 1990s. So, it's not new, but the fact it's not new doesn't mean it's not a good idea.