7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Transport

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:37 pm on 29 September 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:37, 29 September 2021

Now, there was a series of points made that I will try to address in turn. I was struck by Joel James's argument. He said he's in favour of a clean air Act but he's against disincentives, and his account of what cycling was like left me quite puzzled. We heard about people ending up in verges surrounded by dead animals and litter, which, I must say, has not been my experience of riding a bike, and that's fairly untypical, I would suggest. I did see that he was out with Sustrans over the summer, which I was encouraged to see, but I'm not sure if he actually got on the bike. But I would say in all seriousness, adult cycle training is a really important part of what we have to do, because lots of people have got perceptions of what it's like to ride short journeys that are not grounded in reality, and those false perceptions are real barriers to people taking up behaviour change. So, one of the things we are looking at through our record investment in active travel, the most per head in any part of the UK, is how we can enable adults to retrain, to ride a bike safely and comfortably, so that the myths that Joel James has been spouting can be put to bed. 

It also became clear from Gareth Davies's remarkable contribution that his conception of a clean air Act, which they keep telling us they want to introduce, is that we should build more roads as a result. So, that is a very interesting set of proposals, because more roads produce more carbon and produce more nitrogen dioxide from the induced traffic they unleash. I'd be delighted to hear more.