Thinking again – a new approach to road building in Wales
This guest post was written by Lee Waters MS. Lee represents the Llanelli constituency in the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, and is a former Transport Minister in the Welsh Government.
Transport has tended to get a free pass on carbon reduction but it is clear from the advice of the independent UK Climate Change Committee that this must change if we are to have a chance of staying within ‘safe’ global warming limits. Road building is a major contributor.
That’s why the Welsh Government established an independent Roads Review panel to test all plans in the pipeline against the statutory climate change targets adopted by the Welsh Parliament. In February 2023 the Welsh Government followed the panel’s advice and put a stop to 31 road-building projects that were in development.
We made clear that we were not stopping all road building but would set the bar higher for when a new road scheme would be considered.
A new set of road building tests were agreed based on the Roads Review panel final report which focused on minimising carbon emissions, not increasing road capacity, not increasing emissions through higher vehicle speeds and not adversely affecting ecologically valuable sites.
One the schemes that was halted for not meeting the new tests was a long-planned by-pass near Bridgend in south Wales. The local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taff, had designed a new ‘high-speed bypass’ as part of plans to add 1,850 homes to the area. The by-pass had local support from villagers in Llanharan who wanted to ‘relieve pressure’ on the cramped, Victorian high street that runs through the town, 15 miles west of Cardiff.
The car-dependent location would not meet new Welsh Government planning policy, but with the development half completed a new road was integral to the scheme. The cancellation met with local unhappiness but the Council adopted a pragmatic approach and worked closely with the Welsh Government to re-design the scheme to meet the new tests.
The new design that has emerged provides the same connectivity but is not the ‘high-speed bypass’ as envisioned, but a 30mph road. That shift in the character of the road then allowed for a series of key changes to be made.
The lower speed limit allowed for a different set of design standards and requirements for visibility and sight-lines. With different dimensions the 30mph roads needs less land and in-turn requires less material. This not only lowers the scheme costs and the maintenance costs, but also cuts the embedded carbon.
In the case of Llanharan the land footprint of the new scheme will reduce by 45%, and involve a reduction of 30% in embodied carbon. It also halves the habitat loss and avoids the destruction of ancient woodland (a saving of 0.6 hectares of irreplaceable woods) that was involved in the original scheme.
It will also be cheaper to build and maintain.
The scheme would still enable the diversion of HGVs from the narrow village streets, but the alternative route will have bus priority and active travel built in. The design includes over 4km of active travel links, pedestrian crossings, and bus priority measures. The authority also plan to ensure four buses every hour along the new route.
There’s more detail to be developed, including looking at road space reallocation through the village which will see a reduction in traffic flows.
What I’m particularly cheered by is that the local authority engineering team really embraced the challenge and showed real collaboration in the design process with Transport for Wales. The process stretched the professional boundaries that they had traditionally adhered to and unlocked the imagination and pragmatism that the profession prides itself on.
Huge tribute to Rhondda Cynon Taff Leader Councillor Andrew Morgan and his team, the challenge of Road Review Panel Member Geoff Ogden and the team at Transport for Wales.
It gives me hope that we can change the culture of the profession to move beyond the orthodox approach to road design to find a way of providing sustainable transport corridors that don’t compound and lock-in existing patterns.
There’s a lot other Highway Authorities can take from the work so far.
Lee Waters MS represents the Llanelli constituency in the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, and is a former Transport Minister in the Welsh Government.
