Far Away, Few Votes, Who Cares!

I went to a Christmas Fayre on Saturday afternoon. While there I was approached by a former tribune who still involves himself with local affairs. He recounted a recent meeting he’d had with Edwina Hart AM, the Minister for Economy, Science and Transport. He was mightily impressed with Redwina. I bit my tongue. (For you know me, boys and girls, diplomacy is my middle name.) Anyway, to cut to the chase, as they say, the subject they had discussed was a new crossing of the Dyfi on the A487 at Machynlleth. To explain . . .

The A487 runs from Bangor to Haverfordwest, though for a short stretch after Porthmadog it becomes the A470, before rediscovering itself at the Cross Foxes, close to Dolgellau. After parting company the A470 then runs on to Llanidloes, Builth, Brecon, Merthyr and Cardiff. The A487 sticks to the west coast linking Machynlleth, Aberystwyth, Aberaeron, Cardigan, Fishguard, St, David’s and, finally, Haverfordwest. One might think the A470 would be the busier road but it’s often empty of traffic – especially in the ‘Green Desert’ – until it reaches Merthyr. (Though more than once I’ve been on the A470 south of Merthyr in the middle of the day in very light traffic.)

Despite this, the A470 receives far more funding for road improvements than the A487, with this justified by arguing that it is ‘the main north-south artery’. It’s not; it’s the main road from the north to Cardiff, which is not the same thing. The A487 is busier than the A470, for two main reasons. First, it has a much higher population density along its length than the A470. Second, the A487 is the main route from the north west, Aber’ and other places – via Lampeter – to the Swansea Bay conurbation. These are uncomfortable facts for a Cardiff-obsessed ‘Welsh’ Government. But the problems of the A487 will not go away, and in this neck of the woods, as the former councillor reminded me, the big and enduring problem is Dyfi Bridge.

Coming from the north, the only way of reaching Machynlleth by road is over an antiquated stone bridge in the wrong place and just not up to the standard demanded by modern transport. (Obviously, heading north out of the town means using the same bridge.) With the result that, even on good days, there can be problems . . . but there are fewer and fewer good days. Being so narrow, big trucks have great difficulty negotiating Pont Dyfi, often resulting in other traffic having to back up, with all sorts of chaos resulting. Predictably, the bridge is regularly hit and damaged by trucks. At present, there are traffic lights operating following the latest incident.

There is no viable detour – certainly not for heavy traffic – yet the road is vital for people in south Meirionnydd to reach their local hospital in Aberystwyth, or just to go shopping. Apart from the problem with the bridge there is also an issue with flooding on the road between the bridge and Machynlleth itself and, on the other side of the town, at Derwenlas. These problems may now have been remedied . . . though I stress may. Time – plus a combination of a high tide and heavy rain – will tell. So it has been obvious for many years that a new bridge is needed, and perhaps a more far-reaching solution that also provides Mach’ with a by-pass. To inspect the problem first-hand, and get a few pics, I took myself off to Machynlleth this morning. There are five photos in all, click on the ‘I’ to get a brief description.

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On my return I got to wondering if the ‘Welsh’ Government had plans to improve the situation, so I went to that body’s webWelsh Government roadssite, where I found the following information (right, click to enlarge), and nothing more recent. The ‘Welsh’ Government (more likely, the civil servants who take too many decisions in Wales) is prioritising three – I repeat, THREE, east-west links – and one north-south route. Suspecting that the north-south link referred to Roads, specificmight be the A470 I dug a little deeper into the website. My suspicions were confirmed. (Click on panel, left.)

In the works listed to start by 2011 the only one on the A487 is the Porthmadog by-pass, now completed. It’s probably no coincidence that this improvement is located at a point just before the A487 becomes the A470, so in many ways it’s an improvement for the A470 as much as for the A487. The only improvement in the pipeline on the A487 is the stretch from Bontnewydd to Caernarfon. (With which no one could argue.) The other road mentioned here is the A483, the old Manchester-Swansea trunk road.

Given the pressing need for a new bridge over the Dyfi why is the ‘Welsh’ Government refusing to do anything? My suggestion is that there are three principal reasons:

  • The A487 is a north-south road which means that – unlike east-west routes – it offers limited benefits to English companies exploiting the colonial nature of the ‘Welsh’ economy.
  • There are no Labour seats along the entire length of the A487 at either Westminster or in the Welsh Assembly, and little chance of Labour winning any. (This also explains the refusal to re-open the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth rail link.)
  • Any improvements to the A487 at Machynlleth would be of no discernible benefit to Cardiff.

So yet again we see how certain parts of Wales are ignored by the Cardiff Assembly, and why. For a party as tribal, vindictive and anti-Welsh as Labour this neglect of the whole western side of the country is entirely predictable. What’s not so easy to explain is why those MPs and AMs representing the constituencies along the A487, and especially those representing the areas immediately affected by the Dyfi bridge bottleneck, aren’t doing more to press the Labour Party into acting like a government for the whole of Wales.

Which in a curious, roundabout way, reminds me that many years ago political analyst Denis Balsom suggested a tripartite political division of Wales along lines of cultural identity. These were ‘Cymru Cymraeg’ (the Welsh-speaking areas – remember them?), ‘Welsh Wales’ (the Valleys and Swansea Bay), and ‘British Wales’ (the north east, south east and Pembrokeshire). Maybe it’s time we updated this tripartite interpretation taking contemporary realities into account. More specifically, how Labour runs Wales and decides priorities.

I would suggest that Labour also sees Wales in three parts, according to voting habits, and treats each area accordingly in everything from funding on infrastructure to health care, broadband provision, etc., etc. These categories are:

1/ Areas that can be taken for granted, and therefore ignored (the Valleys, Swansea Bay and the urban north east).

2/ Areas that don’t vote Labour – so they can be ‘punished’ (the rural areas of central, western and northern Wales plus perhaps Monmouthshire).

3/ Areas Labour needs to keep ‘rewarding’ in order to hang on to power in the Assembly (basically, a few seats in, and close to, Cardiff).

Which means that unless we see a major shift in voting patterns Labour only needs to worry about six or seven (out of 40) seats to stay in power for ever and a day. This division of Wales certainly explains a lot, but is it a fair or proper way to run a country?

Money Lost, Jobs Denied, Dignity Insulted

There has been a lot of debate lately about procurement policies in Wales. (One discussion was here.) At its simplest, this means ensuring that the Welsh Management, local government and other agencies give contracts to Welsh firms. Doing this obviously maximises the benefits to Wales in terms of jobs, but it also ensures that more money stays in the country, enabling Welsh firms to grow, and circulating in the local economy. So simple, and so obvious, that we shouldn’t really need to discuss it. But we do, because too many contracts – big and small – are still Glandyfi castlegoing to companies from outside Wales. Stuck in traffic at road works yesterday I saw, laid out before me, a good example of this problem.

Anyone who travels the A487, Bangor to Fishguard trunk road, will know about the major road works being undertaken at Glandyfi, between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth. This stretch of road was totally unfit for twenty-first century traffic, having blind bends and a carriageway too narrow for vehicles to pass. (Geologists among you may find this of interest.) The problem at Glandyfi was due to the road being squeezed between the Dyfi estuary and the railway line on the one side, and the walls of Glandyfi castle on the other. Glandyfi castle which, its website tells us, “lies just 12 miles from Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast”. At 12 miles from Aber’ where else it would it be – the Côte de bloody Azur! The website also informs us that guests can go “walking in the Welsh hills”. Fancy that – Welsh hills in Wales! Glandyfi Castle seems to be the worst type of colonio-tourism: ‘Come and enjoy the scenery . . . sorry about the natives’. Makes me wonder how much loot this place has milked from the Welsh public purse over the years. But I digress. Let us return to the road below the castle.

The main contract for this £10m project was granted to English firm Carillion Construction Ltd, which has its HQ in Wolverhapton, some 12 miles from Birmingham, an English city, in the English Midlands, which is in England. A company that does not enjoy an unsullied reputation in civil engineering. Since the work started I must have driven along this stretch of road some 20 or 30 times, and I have always been struck by the fact that most of the sub-contractors seem to be English firms, based in places like Manchester, Coventry; or else I see vehicles showing telephone numbers I know are not Welsh. Though the real giveaway at Glandyfi is the transit camp of portakabins to house the workers. Which is not to say that local firms haven’t seen a few crumbs. For example, when I drove through yesterday I saw a Brodyr Evans of Dolgellau roadsweeper being used . . . which won’t make a big dent in £10m.

So why was the contract given to Carillion? Other big projects in this area have gone to Jones Bros of Ruthin, Alun Griffiths of Abergavenny Carillionand Watkin Jones of Bangor. And there are other Welsh companies. Did none of them tender for the Glandyfi project? Let’s give the Welsh Management the benefit of the doubt and assume that Carillion’s was the only, or the only acceptable, tender. Even if that were the case, then the Welsh Management could still have insisted that Carillion use Welsh sub-contractors. So why didn’t they? How can our AMs lecture our councils and others about local procurement when they don’t practice what they preach?

Some sources say the work was scheduled for completion in July 2012, others say “late 2012”. Whatever the date, it’s well behind schedule. Are we to believe that Welsh companies couldn’t have done a better job? Whether they could or not, the fact remains that millions of pounds have left Wales; a few hundred jobs have been denied to Welsh people; plus, tens of thousands of Welsh people have driven through Glandyfi encouraged to think, ‘How could we manage without the English?’ And all due to the incompetence of those buffoons down Cardiff docks.