Overspend on South Wales Metro is ‘kick in the teeth’ for people of North Wales, says Tory MS

A large overspend on the South Wales Metro scheme has been labelled a “kick in the teeth” for people living in North Wales.

It has been revealed today that the cost of the South Wales Metro project has ballooned to £1bn, an increase of 40 per cent from its initial cost of £734m.

The Welsh Conservatives have criticised the Welsh Government over the increased cost, which has had a lesser sum of £50m invested in it so far.

Shadow Minister for North Wales Darren Millar MS 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.”

Shadow Minister for Transport, Natasha Asghar MS, said: “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.

“Two trains an hour on the Coryton and City lines is unacceptable, it isn’t good enough for a self-prescribed metro service to be offering such a dismal service after £1bn worth of investment.

“TFW must try and reduce their cost to taxpayer by increasing their amount of profitable services and begin to claw back money spent on the South Wales Metro. We also need to see better connectivity with the south-west and midlands, boosting economic growth.”