8. How is the Welsh Government engaging with local authorities in regard to the roads review? OQ59077

Thank you. Engagement has been undertaken with local authorities to discuss the roads review and its implications. The tone of those discussions has been positive and pragmatic, with an emphasis on collaboration with local government on the development of schemes that support modal shift and the decarbonisation of transport.

Minister, that's very positive and good to hear. You'll have seen in the last 24 hours, of course, the chaos that's caused across the local road network in and around Wrexham, when the A483 is closed or when lanes are reduced, and it shows how reduced capacity on the trunk roads impacts on traffic volumes through adjoining towns and villages where there are local roads. So, will you work with local authorities in assessing the impact of not proceeding with trunk road improvements, in terms of traffic volumes, emissions and safety, adjoining local roads and communities, and will you commit to publishing such impact assessments?

Thank you. I was grateful to meet with Ken Skates yesterday to discuss his concern about air quality around the local roads in his constituency and the implications of what might come out of the roads review. We'll be publishing that next Tuesday, the fourteenth, along with the national transport delivery plan and a new roads policy in the future. Ken Skates will remember that when he and I both published the Wales transport strategy two years ago, we committed to putting tackling climate change at the heart of our transport policy, and we now need to follow through on that. That is often uncomfortable and involves doing things differently, and that clashes sometimes with local expectations, which have been built up over many years. But we now have a progressive policy on planning, 'Future Wales', we have 'Planning Policy Wales', we have Net Zero Wales and we have the Wales transport strategy all telling us that we need to move the dial, and that's what we intend to do through the publication of the review.

Clearly, there are transport problems that exist, and he's highlighted some in his own constituency. The situation in Wrexham was unfortunate, because of some overrunning maintenance work that was meant to have been done overnight, but dragged on. There are always going to be incidents like this, whatever capacity you have on the highway network, that are going to cause inconvenience and delays. We need to build a resilient transport network, for sure, but that is resilient not just against short-term pressures, but also against medium to long-term ones that the climate and nature emergencies present. But we will continue to work very closely with local authorities and with Members to make sure that we develop schemes that both help local people and put us in a position to withstand the challenges that are coming towards us.

I thank the Minister and Deputy Minister.