Infrastructure Projects around Wales

Infrastructure Projects around Wales

Energy projects

These are the big energy projects in Wales being built or being planned.

• Wylfa Newydd - £12 billion
• Anglesey Aluminium Biogas electricity plant - £1 billion
• Pen Y Cymoed Electricity - £365 million
• Gwynt Y Môr Electricity - £2 million
• Mid Wales Transmission - £207 million
• North Wales Upgrades Transmission - £549 million
• Wylfa – Pembroke HVDC Link Transmission - £672 million
• Wales & West Gas Distribution - £849 million
• Amlwch LNG terminal - £330 million
• Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon - £1 billion

• Total - £18.972 billion

Also remember the 2012 £3.25Billion investment into the LNG terminals, pipeline and power station based in Milford Haven in West Wales.

Rural Development Programme

Rural Development programme is worth £953 million between May 2015 and 2020. The Rural Development Programme focuses on the challenges of mostly countryside areas

It targets the 9 mostly rural Local Authorities:

• Isle of Anglesey
• Gwynedd
• Conwy
• Denbighshire
• Powys
• Ceredigion
• Pembrokeshire
• Carmarthenshire
• Monmouthshire

Broadband

Many parts of mainly Mid & West Wales had very poor access to fast broadband internet speeds.

The Welsh Government spent £225 million for superfast broadband which will connect up 96% of addresses by the end of 2017. Check out the map below to see where most of this money needed to be spent.

Plans for City Regions

It is proposed that Wales will benefit directly from two city regions. The Cardiff City Region and the Swansea City Region.

 URL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H83Va9ET0BA 

The Cardiff City Region Deal is already starting.

It brings together 10 Local Authority areas to form the Cardiff City Region.

The biggest feature will be improving transport by building what has been termed the South Wales Metro.

The Cardiff City Region plan will cost £1.2 billion of public money:

• £500 million from the UK government
• £500 million from the Welsh Government
• £120 million from the 10 local authorities.

Swansea and West Wales have put forward plans for a city region; this would cost an estimated £1.3 billion this is still at very early stages of planning.

Image: http://gov.wales/docs/det/publications/160224-potential-metro-map-image-en.gif

Transport Projects

-West road is the A55:

• Planning has started on a £200 million project termed the Deeside Corridor Project to improve East-West road transport in North Wales.
• £44 million is being spent on improving junctions on the A55 in North Wales.
• A new road crossing to Anglesey is planned costing £133 million.

Already in 2017 the Welsh Government is spending £50 million which is to be the start of a North Wales Metro costing £500 Million.

Image: http://www.welshlabour.wales/nwmetro

To the South of Powys is the A465, which is currently having £880 million being spent on it. This road is an essential link between mid & West Wales and South Wales as well as the ‘Heads’ of the South Wales Valleys.

Image: http://gov.wales/deet/topicl2/transport/roads/maintaining-road-network/trunkroads.gif

Check out all major current and planned improvements on the Welsh Government Website.

Currently £1 billion of UK Government money is being spent in South Wales on the Electrification of the main railway line between London and Swansea.

The Welsh Government wants to build a new section of the M4 motorway to bypass Newport.

However there are huge arguments over this plan, which have been going on since 1993- 24 years!

This would cost an expected £1-1.2 billion.

Issues raised by the Welsh Government:

• The M4 is the single most important road in Wales; linking South Wales and West Wales to the rest of the UK.
• The Newport section carries more than 100,000 vehicles/day.
• The Newport section does not meet current safety standards.
• Lanes are forced from 8 into four as they go through two tunnels.
• Cost will be around £1-1.2 billion
• Benefits to the economy will be around £2.2-2.6. In rough terms it will make twice as much as it costs for Wales.
• Since the arguments over this project started in 1993 Welsh businesses have lost around £1.2 billion just from the traffic jams around Newport.