Newport Council accused of trying to ‘cherry pick’ Burns transport projects

Senior councillors in Newport have been accused of trying to “cherry pick” which prospective transport projects they support, after previously backing general plans for change under Wales’ former Labour government.

Cllr Matthew Evans accused the Labour-led city council of a “sudden change in emphasis” on its attitudes towards aspects of the Burns Commission’s long list of recommended alternatives to an M4 relief road.

The current Plaid Cymru government in Wales is expected to announce the findings of its M4 review in the coming weeks, and since May’s Senedd elections Labour councillors have been vocal in their opposition to the possibility of motorway junction closures.

A Labour cabinet member said the party’s Newport group had always been “crystal clear” about its opposition to some Burns recommendations such as road tolls.

Then-First Minister Mark Drakeford set up the Burns Commission to look at other ways of improving M4 congestion around Newport, after he scrapped the relief road project on cost and environmental grounds.

The commission’s recommendations focused heavily on improving rail connections, with more passenger services on the South Wales main line and a series of new stations stretching from eastern Cardiff to Severnside.

Recommendations also included the proposed reconfiguration of Old Green Roundabout – which has become a thorny issue at council level, despite being a nationally-led project – and suggestions to consider other measures such as workplace parking charges and tolls, or road-user charging, in future.

But the commission did not recommend bringing in tolls unless a UK-wide scheme was first introduced – nor did the final recommendations include any proposals to shut M4 junctions.

In Newport, Labour cabinet members have long stressed their opposition to any tolls system for the city while showing broader support for the Burns aims.

The council is also part of the Burns Delivery Unit, and has described itself in reports as being “engaged in collaborative development” of the commission’s recommendations.

At a council meeting this week, however, members of the Conservative opposition group questioned the administration’s commitment to the wider Burns proposals.

The Tory group leader, Cllr Matthew Evans, said the council’s leader was on record saying the authority had “previously supported all the recommendations of the Burns commission except road user charging”.

Cllr Evans said ongoing proposals to alter Old Green Roundabout “would be an unmitigated disaster with dire short-term consequences to our traders”, and asked why the council didn’t “nip it in the bud and stop it when you could have done” under a Labour government.

Cllr Rhian Howells, the cabinet member for infrastructure, reiterated the Old Green proposal was a Welsh Government project and said repeated questions to the council were “starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day”.

She said the city’s Labour group had wanted an M4 relief road, “but that option not being available to use anymore, we completely appreciate the Burns funding… is the next option we are considering”. 

“I think we’ve been crystal clear – we are broadly supportive of the Burns measures, but we feel they need to be funded and progressed all together as a full package to make a real difference,” said Cllr Howells.

“We wouldn’t support a drip-feeding of the schemes, and that’s the case we’ve been making to the Welsh Government”, she explained, adding her party was “hoping Plaid Cymru won’t close Newport’s junctions onto the M4”.

Tory councillor David Fouweather said the cabinet member had previously called for “the entire package of Burns measures” to be delivered.

He alleged that would involve measures such as motorway tolls and congestion charging.

“You can’t just cherry pick what you like and what you don’t like from that report”, he said, adding former Labour Senedd Member John Griffiths had “put forward the closure of the motorway junctions”.

“That was a Labour proposal, and all of a sudden you’re all against it,” he said. “You can’t cherry pick what you want and what you don’t like. Come clean with the people of Newport – are you supporting Burns in full, or not?”

Cllr Howells said the Labour group had “made it pretty clear what we think, which is we’re not supportive of anything that relates to charging tolls, charging workplace parking, anything of that sort”.

“I think the practical reality is that Burns aspects like road- or parking charging are clearly not the same as say a pipeline of connected infrastructure corridor projects, which is what the bulk of Burns is really all about,” she said.

“Things like a workplace parking levy and toll charging are effectively standalone aspects, and I think we can perfectly, happily say they don’t work for us in Newport without damaging the whole and the bulk of what Burns is intended to achieve.”