Congestion charge plan leaves city councillors gridlocked
IT’S one of the most ambitious – and divisive – schemes Cardiff Council has ever drawn up.
It’s the plan to charge drivers from outside of Cardiff for driving on city roads.
The congestion charge being touted by the council has led to concerns from people outside the city that it is a tax on the Valleys.
At the first full meeting of Cardiff Council since the plans were announced, councillors debated the plan, including the Labour councillors who have suggested it.
Councillor Caro Wild, who is responsible for traffic in the city, said there are “serious problems in this city due to transport”.
“Imagine the problems we have now, imagine the problems as this city grows. Not only the population living here, but working here, too”.
Ahead of drawing up the options, the council sought people’s views.
Cllr Wild said more than 5,000 people responded to the public consultation.
“People set out clearly their frustrations with our public transport system, how they didn’t feel safe to cycle around our city and how they want to see the Metro reaching them soon”.
The so-called “white paper” that has then been created is a 10-page document which is now being consulted on.
Bus travel is one of the key elements of the plan.
Cllr Wild said he thinks buses are the “key ingredient” and the proposals include bringing back routes, routes from east to west, and more direct routes from outside the city.
The plan also demands car use be cut.
Cllr Wild said the council needed to look at car-sharing, protect residents’ parking spaces and free up areas around Llanrumney which have “serious problems with how people park”.
Research shows 90,000 commuters come into Cardiff every day – 80,000 of them by car.
Cllr Wild admitted that the “white paper” is ambitious and said: “We have to be completely honest, we don’t know how any of those things would be paid for.”
But he said that people travelling solo using their cars have to be “disincentivised”.
The Conservative group on the council said that while there is “good work” in the plan, not enough has been done.
Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups put forward reference backs, which means they want Labour to revisit its plans.
More than one councillor said the authority had not provided evidence that it could deliver the proposed projects.
Conservative councillor Joel Williams told the meeting it had been 1,000 days since he was elected and, during all that time, the Labour-run authority had been promising traffic improvements.
“Where is the bus station?” he asked. “Where is it?”
“In 2015 we were promised a bus station for the capital city of Wales. And in 2020, five years later, we haven’t even commenced construction [shouts from the Labour benches that it has started]. It’s not going to be complete until 2023. It’s taken eight days to build a hospital in China, but eight years in Cardiff to build a bus station”.
Since the announcement by the council, concern has been expressed by other Labour politicians, including Assembly Members, council leaders and councillors.
Transport for Wales also said this week they hadn’t been consulted on the plan before the announcement was made.
Conservative councillor Shaun Jenkins said: “Even the First Minister couldn’t bring himself to endorse the plan”.
Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas said that all parties were to blame for a lack of development in terms of transport.
“In the last 20 years not one new train station has been built in Cardiff, not one new mile of new railway track, less than one mile of road, and all our parties should take responsibility for that.
“I can’t tell you how much effort has been put in to get some investment out of central government since 2010 into Cardiff Central railway station, the busiest in Wales. It has been like getting water out of a stone.
“It’s an embarrassment, so we all need to take responsibility for the state of transport in Cardiff.”