Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 23 November 2022.
Thank you. As Ken Skates rightly says, junction 1 was not included as part of the roads review schemes that it has looked at, but the other junctions were. The proposals that have been put forward by the local council for junction 1 would involve a large remodelling of the junction, which would be carbon intensive and would increase road capacity. So, this is relevant to the recommendations we're anticipating from the roads review about future road schemes. What we don't want to do, by treating schemes in isolation—there's always a case for individual schemes—is for the cumulative impact of that to add to traffic volumes. So, we do need to think very carefully. That said, where there are traffic problems, there need to be solutions, and one of the themes in the roads review is how future roads can be made compliant with existing policies on climate change, transport and planning. So, when we produce the results, in the areas where we accept the recommendations of the review not to go ahead with a road, we will want to work with the local authority and other partners to see what else can be done in that case. As I say, I'm not able to preannounce what's decided—largely because we haven't yet decided—but we'll be updating Members in the coming weeks on the next steps.