Infrastructure Investment in North Wales

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:23 pm on 17 November 2021.

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Photo of Carolyn Thomas Carolyn Thomas Labour 2:23, 17 November 2021

I've had a response regarding that as well and been told that it's being followed up, with officers meeting with Wrexham officials as well. Diolch.

Improvements along the A55 in Gwynedd received 50 per cent EU funding to do the work. This is just one example of how north Wales's infrastructure gained from being a net beneficiary of European funding. We were promised we would be no worse off after Brexit, yet just one north Wales local authority—Wrexham—benefited from the replacement fund, the levelling-up fund, and that was for the Pontcysyllte aqueduct. Flintshire council submitted a high-priority regional funding bid for infrastructure projects, including the Deeside parkway station, which would improve access for north Wales residents to 400 businesses and 5,000 jobs at Deeside industrial park, a park-and-ride at Penyffordd station, and improvements for freight at Castle Cement to enable a planned increase in services on the Wrexham-Bidston line to two trains per hour. None of this was funded. Minister, do you agree with me that the UK Government is selling north Wales short by not providing the same amount of funding and investment in infrastructure that we would have had if we had been part of the European Union?