Opposition to the Proposed (Black Route)

It costs too much money, South Wales always gets the money and people in South Wales are the richest.

Over the past two editions of GitN we have been looking at infrastructure spending in Wales and at the main schemes since 2010 and those planned for the future. These are the tables from the last edition showing how spending is actually much lower in total and then per person for South Wales Central and South Wales East.

W.I.M.D. (Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation)

When we look at how well off an area is in Wales we use the W.I.M.D. (Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation).

W.I.M.D. is the Welsh Government’s official measure of deprivation in Wales. Deprivation is the lack of access to opportunities and resources which we might expect in our society. This can be in terms of material goods or the ability of an individual to participate in the normal social life of the community. W.I.M.D. combines the following information into a single measurement (index) so that they are easier to compare.

• Income

• Employment

• Health

• Education

• Access to Services

• Community Safety

• Physical Environment

• Housing

It will cause damage to important environments.
It is true that the proposed route will cut through some SSSI’s (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) of the Gwent Levels. However only 2% will be lost and the remaining 98% will be improved.

It will stop Newport Docks from operating.
The proposed bridge over the river Usk and Newport Docks will stop the tallest ships from using part of the dock basins. However check out the fly through video again or this screen grab from it to see how much of the docks area would be affected.

Most of the docks will be unaffected.

There is a better route.

Some people agree that something needs to be done but that there is a better choice called the ‘Blue Route’.

The blue route would be cheaper costing an estimated £350 million. It would follow the route of the 4 lane Southern Distributor road which was built in 2004 by Newport City Council at a cost of £55 million to solve the problems of traffic jams in Newport. It is a full dual carriageway which has many junctions with local roads so that it connects many different communities which lay either side of it. It connects Junction 24 (The Coldra) of the M4 at the East of Newport with Junction 28 (Tredegar Park) at the West of Newport.

In 2013 the Welsh Government paid £13 million to upgrade the old Llanwern Steelworks access road into a full dual carriageway joining the Southern Distributor Road.

The proposed blue route is to replace the current 4 lane dual carriageway road with a new 4 lane dual carriageway road creating no extra capacity. However the existing junctions with local roads would be removed so instead of linking communities the road would divide them.

This route would also put the extra traffic through existing residential areas bringing extra noise and pollution to many thousands of people.

By losing the Southern Distributor Road Newport Town Centre roads would return to the extreme traffic congestion of the past. Read what Newport MP Paul Flynn has to say about it.

Do Nothing

Some people believe that for a variety of reasons it is best to do nothing. Some believe that as fast as we build roads cars will fill them. That it is far better to improve public transport and that the proposed South Wales Metro (see the past two editions of GitN) will solve the problems.

The South Wales Metro will in the future hopefully mean that people living in the Valleys and towns of South Wales will have an alternative to the car to commute to city and town centres for work, shopping and pleasure.

However its impacts will be minimal over the next ten years. It will not help business transport or those needing to go elsewhere to work such as the industrial areas and out of town work sites.

Do nothing is what has happened since 1993 when the need for this road first started planning. Since then the Economy of Wales has lost more money than it would have cost. And over the next few decades Wales will lose at least double the cost of building it.

Not least try justifying this to the residents of the Gwent Valleys and Cwmbran who need to go to work two hours early in the morning to avoid the traffic jams and get to work on time and then sit in a traffic jam for an hour every evening. For the global environment think about how much pollution is created from the many cars stuck in the traffic jams every morning and every evening. How about the businesses losing tens of millions a year or the tens of thousands of people unemployed as a result of inaction for the past 24 years.

The last UK Prime Minister described the M4 around Newport as a “foot on the windpipe of the Welsh economy”.

This why the Welsh Government believes that it is best to do both to improve public transport with a South Wales Metro and create much increased motorway capacity with the proposed black route.