Clwyd West MS Darren Millar has described the extra £300m the Welsh Government have ploughed into the South Wales Metro as a “kick in the teeth for the people of North Wales”.
Today it has been revealed that the cost of the South Wales Metro project has ballooned to £1bn, an increase of 40% from its initial cost of £734m.
Commenting on the news, Darren, who is the Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for North Wales, said:
“This extra £300m investment for the South Wales Metro project, taking the total investment to £1bn, is a kick in the teeth for the people of North Wales. North Wales already suffers from chronic Transport underinvestment from the Labour government, all whilst just £50m has been earmarked for the North Wales Metro project.
“Today’s announcement continues to show Labour’s negligence of North Wales. In North Wales we have no metro service to speak of and no new roads to use as an alternative, under Labour North Wales is grinding to a halt.”
Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Transport, added:
“While we are supportive of the South Wales Metro project, we also believe in value for money for the taxpayer. Labour should not have allowed costs to spiral 40% over budget.
“There are also questions to be answered regarding whether this investment is getting maximum value for money when it is intended to be classified as a heavy rail line, rather than light rail. This £1bn investment will still see it not classed as a ‘metro’ style service, it will still require guards on all services and will be unable to use line of sight signalling, truly reducing the potential for it to be transformative.
“Labour’s insistence on spending millions of taxpayers’ money on keeping guards on ‘metro’ trains appears to be to avoid confrontation with their paymasters, the unions. Rather than deliver a modern metro service, to the same standards as other metro services across the UK, Labour would rather keep the unions happy.”
