Major plans to improve safety and journey times on the A55 have been scrapped.
The Welsh Government has announced that work planned for the A55 at junction 14/15 and 16/16A will now not go ahead. The £75m scheme was due to begin in spring 2022, the expected cost had been £43m for J14/15 and £32m for J16/16. So far, £8.9m has been spent on the schemes.
See the full list of road building schemes put on hold here
The proposals would have replaced the roundabout at Junction 15, near to Llanfairfechan, with a four way height-separated junction, as well as improvements to Junction 14. Penmaenmawr Road and Shore Road East would be realigned to accommodate the junction.
More trees and open space would have been created as well as new cycle and pedestrian routes.
The plans would also have seen the roundabout at Junction 16, near to Penmaenmawr and Dwygyfylchi, replaced with a junction at Junction 16A and a new link road connection to Junction 16 and Dwygyfylchi where the westbound access to and from the A55 would be retained. Ysgurborwen Road and Glan Yr Afon Road would be locally realigned to accommodate the junctions.
Why have they been scrapped?
In June 2021, the Welsh Government announced all new road building projects would be put on hold.
It said at the time it wanted to look at them to see whether the money set aside for the building works could be better spent.
The Wales Transport Strategy would consider "shifting spending" towards better maintaining existing roads, rather than building new ones, and look at all proposed road investments, whether funded directly by the Welsh Government or indirectly by grants. An external panel was set up to look at all the schemes,
It came after the Senedd election where Labour took the majority of seats and Mark Drakeford formed a government with a wide-ranging climate change department. You can read the original announcement here.
That panel was chaired by Dr Lynn Sloman MBE, a transport specialist based in Wales.
The full list of roads being reviewed has now been published, you can read those here.
What did the panel find?
- Replacing two roundabout would "create little absolute improvement to the collision record".
- It would change journey times in a "marginal way".
- They would enhance journey time reliability "but only during the summer periods of higher flow".
- It does not meet sustainable transport goals, mode share (the number of travellers using a particular mode of transport) or targets to increase the proportion of freight moved by sustainable modes.
- The scheme will not assist the Welsh Government carbon reduction targets and budgets in the next 15 years.
- "The scheme creates modest changes, with some benefits and disbenefits, for people and communities, and the environment"
- "The scheme costs more than the estimated value of the benefits"
- "There are considerable future uncertainties linked with resilience issues brought about by climate change, the long-term outcome of Brexit and Covid-19. The scheme would perform worse in a scenario in which travel by motor vehicle was lower as a result of existing policies and emerging plans. These suggest the robustness of the scheme to different futures is limited."
What will happen next?
There will now be a 12 month review led by Lord Terry Burns, former Permanent Secretary of the UK Treasury who led the commission after the cancellation of the M4 relief road.
Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters said: "If we are serious about facing up to the Climate Emergency, we have to be willing to do things differently, and critically to give people across north Wales genuine alternatives to using their cars for most journeys.
"As well as looking at the A55 corridor, the North Wales Transport Commission will also look at how we can improve sustainable transport options in rural areas. This will need a shift of investment towards public transport and I’m very pleased Lord Burns has agreed to lead a panel of local experts to set out a detailed list of projects that will be needed to make this a reality.
“This does not mean the end of road building, but it does mean a greater emphasis on looking after the roads we already have as well as investing in alternatives to give people a real choice"
What alternatives are there?
You can see the report here in full. It includes suggestions like a 50mph speed limit over the whole length covered by the Junction 14 to Junction 16A scheme, and also the Penmaenbach and Conwy tunnels.
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