Grange University Hospital

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 22 September 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:10, 22 September 2020

Llywydd, I thank Nick Ramsay for those points. I absolutely do associate myself with what he said about construction workers: here is a major project, a £360 million project, delivered on budget and ahead of time, and that really is a tribute to those who've planned it and then who have executed the plans for the hospital, and it very much is part of Aneurin Bevan University Health Board's plan for dealing with those people who fall acutely ill and will need urgent respiratory care in response to coronavirus. So, the Grange hospital will be pivotal over the months during the winter when those sorts of services may be even more necessary than they have been in the spring and summer period.

I thank the Member for what he asked about public transport, and I know he's raised this in a recent article in the South Wales Argus. The university health board confirmed to me yesterday that there will be a public bus service to the site when the hospital is open in November—buses will drop off at a dedicated point on the site. There are bus services that will link Newport, Caerleon, Cwmbran and the site itself, and there are further discussions going on to confirm all those services, but the health board is determined that public transport to the site will be there from the time the hospital opens, and will be available to those who need to use it.

The Member has asked me previously about the state of the A4042. I know he will be aware of the actions that have been taken to improve drainage along the road in recent times, and there is some evidence that those investments are paying a dividend and that some of the interruptions to the road—particularly through flooding in recent years—may now have been resolved through the schemes that have been put in place and the improvements that have been made on adjacent third party land.