Lord Adonis urges revamp of UK’s rail network

FORMER UK Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has called for a new rail infrastructure policy, aimed at delivering better rail services in Wales and across Britain.

But Labour AM Lee Waters said investing in local bus services could be more beneficial for the Welsh economy than big rail projects like HS2 that made it easier for people to have a long-distance commute to work.

In a series of tweets, Lord Adonis, who chairs the UK Government’s National Infrastructure Commission, raised some social media users’ hackles when he appeared to criticise the Welsh Government for commissioning a feasibility study into rebuilding the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth railway line, which shut in 1964.

He wrote: “I’m a great supporter of devolution, but Wales will only prosper if it is outward-looking and has better transport links with England”.

Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths responded: “Wales not an inward-looking nation, just a cash-strapped one!”

When Plaid Cymru AM Simon Thomas invited Lord Adonis to back the reopening of the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth route on the basis that it would recreate a north-south railway in Wales, the peer responded: “A matter for Welsh Govt. I wd prioritise radically improved links with Birmingham & London, esp with HS2 coming.”

Responding to questions from the Western Mail, Lord Adonis tweeted: “I want more but for Welsh Govt to prioritise. Where my thinking has moved is on Beeching closures: new national policy needed. Nothing stopping them [Welsh Government] reopening lines NOW, as Welsh Govt did brilliantly with Ebbw Vale line. Good to see feasibility study on Carm-Aberyst.”

Mr Waters said: “It’s right that there should be a look at priorities, but I do not think that big new infrastructure projects are the right way to go . ... The money spent on the feasibility study would have been better spent making the bus service along the route more frequent.”