It’s not often that you get a politician admitting to his own stupidity but the Welsh Government’s transport minister has now claimed that using tolls to reduce congestion on the M4 at Newport is “not something that’s even come up in conversations”.
ITV news points out that:
In social media posts in 2019 before he was a Senedd member, Mark Hooper MS suggested charging drivers for using the M4 in peak times and reducing the number of junctions around Newport in order to discourage short journeys and car use in general.
I wrote last week that the report that the Plaid Cymru government has used to justify its inability to solve the congestion was entirely circular when it came to tolls, ruling them out on the basis that they were
not currently being pursued by the Welsh Government
Now Hooper has backed this circular reasoning, while justifying kicking the can down the road with an 18-month review:
For too long this has been a problem that has been kicked down the road, but I’m not doing that.
So there’s no plans to introduce tolls. That’s not something that’s even come up in conversations with ministers or anyone else.
But what we’ve got to do is have the solutions in place that work.
The ITV News report notes that:
The Welsh Government plans to review ‘roads-based solutions’ to relieve congestion, including possible junction closures and widening the Brynglas tunnels.
And that:
The report released this week by the Welsh Government revives the idea of a ‘Blue Route’, which was discussed a decade ago.
None of this would be enough by itself but any or all of it would be far more complicated and possibly less effective than the solution that Hooper is happy to say he didn’t even consider.
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