Trunk Roads in Monmouthshire

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 26 March 2019.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 1:55, 26 March 2019

Thank you, First Minister. I think you’ve anticipated that I was going to ask about the A466 in Chepstow. Actually, I wasn’t on this occasion, for once. [Laughter.]

Yesterday, I was delighted to attend the topping off ceremony at the new Grange university hospital in Cwmbran, along with the Minister, Lynne Neagle, Alun Davies—I think we all had time for a selfie atop the new building with neighbouring AMs as well.

The project is looking good, and we hope that it will provide a first-class patient experience when complete, but attention is now turning to the transport links to that new critical care centre, because it will cover a much larger area than the existing critical care centres at Newport and Abergavenny, the latter of which covers south Powys as well. We know—and I’ve asked the Minister for transport about this in the past—that there are problems with the A4042 between Abergavenny and Cwmbran, particularly at Llanellen, south of Abergavenny, which is prone to heavy flooding. I don’t think we’ve got a solution to that problem yet. I wonder if we could have an answer as to what has been done to alleviate flooding at that point so that constituents of Kirsty Williams in Powys will be able to get down to the new critical care centre by ambulance, as well as my own constituents, and also a wider look at trunk roads around Monmouthshire and Gwent to make sure that all patients, whichever part of that area they come from, are able to access the new facilities at this critical care centre as they would hope to do.