Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 13 February 2019.
Yes. Can I thank Dawn Bowden for her question that covers three areas—the metro system, the A465 and the new bus station? Progress is being made at pace on all three key components of our intervention within the Valleys region. First of all, I can say that, with regard to the A465, we are making good progress in terms of the orders. We're going to be in position to be able to move forward with the next sections of the scheme. Construction is planned to start early in 2020 and will take approximately three and a half years to deliver. This is a huge undertaking, an infrastructure project valued at almost £1 billion for the Heads of the Valleys. And in terms of Merthyr bus station, £10 million is being committed under the Wales infrastructure investment fund to help develop that particular piece of infrastructure, and the local authority, I'm pleased to say, has submitted a further application to the local transport fund for 2018-19 for the construction of the bus station. So, officials are currently assessing the application.
In terms of the metro system, as the Member is aware, the south Wales metro will deliver four trains per hour from Merthyr to Cardiff Queen Street from 2022, and from 2023 for Rhymney services. Transport for Wales will introduce new metro vehicles—if you like, tram trains—on the Merthyr line in 2022, and that will mean that there are 600 more seats in morning peak times, and 1,000 more seats during evening peak times, and journey time between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff Central will fall from the current one hour to approximately 48 minutes from December 2023. All of these interventions are designed to remove the key barrier of lack of decent, modern, affordable public transport that people need in order to access jobs.