Welsh city needs public transport changes and relief road, says council leader

Nicholas Thomas, Local democracy reporter

Newport’s council leader has urged public transport sceptics to think about planned improvements in the round – but also said he would still like to see an M4 relief road.

Cllr Dimitri Batrouni said the pace of the city’s growth meant “it doesn’t take a genius to work out we’ll have more people who need to move around”.

The council’s Conservative group has long questioned the Welsh Government’s proposals to overhaul public transport in the city, which is based on recommended alternatives to the scrapped relief road plan.

They include proposals to reconfigure Old Green Roundabout, several new railway stations throughout the city, and bus lanes on the A48 between Newport and Cardiff.

An independent commission led by Lord Terry Burns devised a long list of alternatives recommendations to improve the city’s transport after then-first minister Mark Drakeford scrapped the M4 plan in 2019.

Speaking at a council meeting on Tuesday, the Tory group leader, Cllr Matthew Evans, accused the Welsh Government of being “hell-bent on squandering millions more on useless active travel schemes” and a “war on motorists”.

He asked Cllr Batrouni to “explain the logic behind” schemes reducing M4 congestion.

The council leader replied the Burns commission had set out in detail how a series of 58 recommendations would help improve city transport when it published its findings in 2020.

“It’s not an individual project that will make the difference – it’s a suite of projects… inclusive of all the rail investment as well,” added Cllr Batrouni. “It’s about offering and improving infrastructure in every aspect of transport.

“If you look at individual projects and think well how is that going to make things better, it’s missing the point. It needs a whole suite of these different interventions to make a difference to the M4 traffic.”

The leader of the Labour-run council said he had “always been for” the M4 project and thought it was still necessary for the city.

“Newport is growing so fast that we need the train stations, the cycle improvements, the bus improvements and we’ll need some sort of relief road,” he said. “Because if the population is growing, it doesn’t take a genius to work out we’ll have more people who need to move around.”

On concerns about projects which promote public transport over cars, he told Cllr Evans “it’s not a zero-sum game”.

“It’s not cyclists win and motorists lose, or anything like that,” said Cllr Batrouni. “For any modern city across the globe, we need all forms of transport. We need people to be able to cycle if they so wish, drive, catch the bus, walk and so on.”

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the Welsh Government on proposals for the new railway stations in and around Newport, calling the project “a generational commitment to build a rail network fit for Wales’ future”.

First minister Eluned Morgan added: “We are now in an unprecedented position to deliver the next chapter of transformation for rail services in Wales.”