The Welsh Conservatives made an error in figures they published suggesting the Welsh Government lost more than half a million pounds on homes bought up for the scrapped M4 relief road. Although money was lost on some of the property sales, there was a small net profit overall.
WalesOnline has corrected this article which we initially published after Natasha Ashgar, the Tory MS for south east Wales, raised the issue in the Senedd. The plans, which would have seen a three-lane motorway built on part of the Gwent Levels in Newport, were first mooted back in the 1990s but were blighted by political infighting, delays and inquiries before first minister Mark Drakeford said in June 2019 that the project would not go ahead. By then the costs were estimated to have ballooned to over £1bn.
It was previously reported that more than £15m was spent on compulsory purchase orders for 29 properties in areas where the road was to be built since 1995. Ms Asghar had accused the Welsh Government of "scandalous disregard" for public money after claiming it has made huge losses on the homes bought in that period.
Read more: The twists and turns of the £1.3bn M4 relief road that never happened
During the Senedd hearing, she claimed only seven of the purchased properties have been sold on —three at a profit of £334,000 and the other four at a loss of a staggering £925,765, making a net loss of £591,765. However, the correct figures show that the seven properties were bought for a total of £2.05m and sold for a total of £2.14m, making a small profit of around £90,000.
Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters said: “Ms Asghar – like her Prime Minister and Chancellor – has got her sums completely wrong. I look forward to her correcting the Record and retracting these statements.”
A spokesperson for the Welsh Conservatives said they accepted that the original figure was a miscalculation but that it remained a fact that of the seven properties sold, four were sold at a loss.
The party issued a subsequent statement which said that three of the properties were sold at a profit of £334k and four at a total loss of £250k. In the statement, Ms Ashgar said the Welsh Government "must come clean and explain the loss from the sale of these properties".
Many of the properties bought to make way for the M4 relief road remain unsold.
In August last year the remaining £78m costs of the relief road were written off by Welsh Government, leaving the project dead in the water. In August during the Tory leadership election which saw her become the new prime minister, Liz Truss criticised Mr Drakeford for stopping the road and committed to the project if she became leader, despite Westminster having no powers to build it. Asked specifically if she would build the M4 relief road, she said: "Yes." You can read more about that here.
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