After councillors slammed the Labour Welsh and UK Governments for failing to deliver investment for transport schemes in Carmarthenshire, former Labour council Leader Kevin Madge supported a Plaid Cymru proposal demanding fair funding.
In chairing a scrutiny committee debate on the Draft Regional Transport Plan for South-West Wales, Cllr Madge agreed that Carmarthenshire has not been getting its fair share of government funding for transport schemes in the county.
Cabinet member Cllr Aled Vaughan Owen told the committee that the Labour Welsh and UK governments were not delivering transport improvement for the people of Carmarthenshire. “They have the money and they should be using that for schemes in places like the Amman Valley,” said Cllr Owen.
Plaid Cymru’s Cllr Colin Evans from Ammanford said that the closed Amman Valley railway should be brought back into use as a passenger service. “There’s been talk about this for about 30 years. But nothing practical has been done about it. It could be an important transport artery.”
Cllr Neil Lewis said: “If we want better bus and train services, and new relief roads for economic development, we need investment. We’re not getting any at the moment.” He then proposed that a letter should be sent to the Labour governments in Cardiff and London demanding a fair share of the HS2 railway funding. “To classify a railway from London to Birmingham as an England and Wales project means we’ve missed out on Barnett consequential funding of £4b for Wales.”
In seconding the proposal, Cllr Gareth Thomas slammed the UK Govt for refusing to provide the extra billions Wales should be getting. “The Labour party in power is taking no notice at all of us here in Carmarthenshire. It’s totally pointless to discuss transport plans if we don’t get the money to deliver them. The funding that’s due to us would enable that to happen.”
In supporting the proposal, Labour’s Cllr Kevin Madge agreed with Plaid Cymru members. “We’ve got to try and make sure that we get our fair share, and we haven’t had our fair share. I totally agree with that,” he said. (CCC webcast at 0:28:12)
Members of the Place, Sustainability & Climate Change Scrutiny Committee (Friday, 14 March) voted unanimously to support the Plaid proposal calling for fair funding from the two Labour governments.
