We’ve just passed the six year anniversary of Labour’s decision to ditch building the M4 relief road, a disastrous decision that has fundamentally held back the Welsh economy ever since.
The Welsh Labour Government scrapped their M4 relief road project (south of Newport) after over £150m of taxpayers’ money was spent on the proposals.
They compulsory purchased 38 properties for £24.6m to make way for the relief road and, shockingly, 20 days before the road’s cancellation, the Labour Welsh Government spent £575,000 on another property south-west of Newport. Then, just 13 days before the decision, another house was bought for £462,162. All that money wasted, for nothing.
It’s clear the relief road was and is needed - the South East Wales Transport Commission report found that the M4 near Newport ranked within the top 50 traffic hotspots in Europe, and was the 4th most congested stretch of urban motorway in the United Kingdom.
The failure to implement this vital infrastructure project has left motorists and businesses without a crucial solution to manage growing traffic demands. It is painfully clear that Labour ministers in Cardiff have no solutions when it comes to alleviating congestion on the M4.
The Welsh Government’s decision to scrap the M4 relief road wasted huge amounts of money and was fundamentally an attack on Welsh motorists.
There’s no doubt that an M4 relief road would alleviate traffic demands, whilst boosting our economy and investment into Wales.
The Welsh Conservatives will always be on the side of motorists, that is why earlier this month in a Senedd motion we called for Labour to build a relief road. However, Labour and Plaid Cymru voted against us and have once again denied the people of Wales a solution that would ease congestion and boost our economy.
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It’s not only the M4 relief road that Labour have gotten wrong, though. By nationalising the rail operator, they have ensured that Transport for Wales (TfW) will be an ongoing money pit for taxpayers, as well as being the worst-rated rail operator in Britain.
Welsh Government are directly funding TfW just so they can stay afloat. In 2023 they handed out a blank cheque to TfW to compensate for falling passenger numbers, to the tune of £125m.
Last year TfW made a further loss of £300m and this year Labour agreed to a whopping £381.15m in funding for TfW in 2025 to 2026, after previously funding the service with £344.44m in 2024/25.
This funding boost from Welsh Government comes as fares continue to rise to record levels. Passengers will rightly question where their money is going, especially when so much money is wasted, like £14.2m on 40 consultants or £1,997,931 worth of rent and utilities for their empty Pontypridd office that has only 36% of desks filled.
They spend £46m of their budget on Active Travel grants to local councils and £90,000 a month on software. This reckless spending needs to be reigned in.
Furthermore, the South Wales Metro project has seen its initial budget balloon from £800m to over £1 billion, with work still ongoing long past the estimated completion date given by Welsh Government – and this figure is likely to rise even further.
When it comes to transport and Labour, it’s clear that they do not have the best interests of motorists and commuters at heart. That can be seen from their disastrous default 20mph speed limit, a policy that has cost an initial £32m and will hit the Welsh economy by up to £9 billion – that’s according to the Welsh Government’s own figures.
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The Welsh Conservatives have been the only party in the Senedd who have vowed to scrap 20mph and restore a default 30mph to roads across Wales.
As we move from the land to the air, lets take a look at Cardiff Airport. Labour bought the failing airport in 2013 for £52m and ever since, they have run the airport further and further in to the ground. Passenger numbers are in free fall and hundreds of millions of pounds has been sunk into the failing enterprise to prop it up.
If nearly £200m spent so far wasn’t enough, earlier this year, the Welsh Government outlined plans to inject an extra £206m into Cardiff Airport, the first £20m of which was released in April this year.
The Welsh Government must look again at how to diversify the income streams of the airport if we are to see any real positive change in the years to come. Let’s be honest, Welsh Labour Ministers have no idea how to run an airport, so they must look to the private sector as an answer, with people who are successful in running airports.
After 26 years of Labour we have seen vital road projects scrapped, a rail service subsidised by taxpayers and an airport with no passengers with inflated subsidies to keep it afloat. It is clear that under Labour, Wales is standing still.
In my new role as Welsh Conservative Transport spokesman, I am determined to see a transport and infrastructure network that gets Wales moving in the right direction.
By building a long-overdue M4 relief road and other vital road projects, we can better connect our communities and boost the Welsh economy. Cardiff Airport should be sold to the private sector, if it is to thrive as a meaningful link to the rest of the world. Our rail service needs to be overhauled with an all-Wales mentality instead of just focusing on parts of the south.
If we do those things, then Wales will be on the right track.