Wise up to Westminster and vote accordingly

WHILE I agree that the cost of the Swansea tidal lagoon is too high, both in financial terms and, due to the intended use of stone to be quarried in Cornwall, environmentally, there is a pressing need to develop renewable energy sources and use of the tide will become increasingly important.

I care about what we are leaving for future generations. Lagoons and wind turbines are better than constant flooding and hurricanes.

The Westminster government, in rejecting the proposal, should have sought the company involved and others to come up with a more efficient scheme, but were silent.

It is interesting that on the same day they gave the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow, a scheme that equally involves great cost financially and to the environment. It has always struck me that a sizeable number of passengers travelling through Heathrow are neither starting nor ending their journey in the south east of England. Other airports around the UK (Cardiff, for example) are under-utilised. Instead of seeking to increase traffic through Heathrow those at Westminster could have looked at transferring some flights to these airports. This is easily achieved by doing nothing, as if the runways at Heathrow are operating at full capacity airlines wishing to fly more planes to the UK would have no alternative but to use other airports.

This, coupled with the abandonment of rail electrification and other Welsh schemes while ploughing vast sums into HS2, Heathrow, cross-London rail links and other schemes involving the south east of England, shows where Westminster considers important.

Perhaps it is time that the people of Wales realised both the Tory and Labour parties are not interested in the real development of Wales. There is no Welsh Labour or Welsh Conservative party, only Welsh members of the London-based parties. Until we wake up to this and vote accordingly, we will always be ignored by Westminster. Alan Rumble Cardiff