Road proposals are a grotesque travesty
BOTH new road proposals planned for a link road between the M4 and A48 are a grotesque travesty for many reasons, but mainly because of the cost implication of 50-ish or 80-ish million pounds.
With finite funds available, perhaps the money would be better spent on updating the archaic public transport system that exists and hasn’t progressed in more than a quarter of a century. Cardiff doesn’t even have a bus station any more (now buried under yet more office space).
Disgusting when you consider a footfall of conservatively 28 million people a year. It must be very bemusing and frustrating for visitors to our capital village.
It is so sad we have not progressed like nearly all the European cities, with their efficient green Metros and corresponding links outside their capitals – also cutting pollution levels by so doing. Another part of both proposals is to shut off one of Peterston-super-Ely’s main access routes (Logwood Hill), which would not only deny access to the A48 and our only viable bus service but also all the emergency vehicles to our village.
Another major factor against this excessive expenditure is that, with all the housing development planned, and already started (some 13,000-plus homes within a 10-mile radius), we have been told that there are no plans in place for extra doctors, dentists, or ambulances; and that schools will follow only at the last phase of development. Ten years have passed since this scheme was initially proposed, to serve commuters to all the factories: Sony, Panasonic, Bosch (with handsome free grants from this Assembly Government) – jobs now sadly gone, never to return.
Don’t be misled by the possibility of slightly increased footfall at the airport; this isn’t argument enough to warrant this road.
It has been proved that roads breed yet more roads and with them significantly increased levels of air pollution, not to mention gridlock.
So perhaps a small amount of these funds could be spent on improving existing country lanes and, more especially, building a modern, accessible, affordable, efficient and comfortable public transport system.
Surely, now is the right time for joined-up, responsible thinking, for the sake of better health and wellbeing for our future generations?
Susan Atkins Peterston-Super-Ely