Welsh road fears after £1bn M4 scheme scrapped

Transport campaigners fear all new road building in Wales could be shelved after plans for the £1bn M4 Relief Road were officially dumped this week.

Welsh Assembly deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones cancelled plans to build an M4 relief road between Magor and Castleton earlier this week.

In 2007, he announced that the scheme could go ahead with construction as early as 2010 to open in 2013. But the minister claimed that the scheme cost had risen almost threefold from £340m to around £1bn making its cost "prohibitive".

Freight Transport Association spokesman Jo Tanner said: "We have seen a complete about face from the Welsh Assembly Government who had promised that the M4 relief road would be open by 2013. Without it the future of the South Wales economy is severely hamstrung.

 
"It is bitterly disappointing that despite industry’s best efforts to convey the importance of better traffic flows in and out of Wales to its economic well being, there is no apparent compulsion amongst the Assembly Government to invest in Wales’ future."
 
The Welsh Assembly Government has also shelved plans to make improvements to access to Cardiff Airport.