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Welsh Affairs

I understand that to be the case. We must get our policy on roads right and we must do it now. I was delighted to hear Andrew Davis, the Minister for Enterprise, Innovation and Networks in the Welsh Assembly Government announce immediately that he was going to put public transport grants into the A4226 to upgrade this unsuitable, narrow and very dangerous road from the Port road in Barry up to the A48. We were pleased that that money was allocated, but it will not be enough. Consultants have now been invited quickly to produce proposals on direct access to the M4 to facilitate access to the military academy within the five years that it will take to construct and move into it. My plea this afternoon is for the Welsh Assembly Government—I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues will do whatever they can in support—seriously to consider whether the main artery for the academy could be the original airport link road, running west to east through the south of my constituency, now that the re-trunking of the A48 and the trunking of the A4226 has been blocked and scuppered. We must look into providing realistic alternatives. As the MP for this constituency, I do not rule out any option. We must provide the best road infrastructure so that we get the benefit from this development. If we do not do that, we will not get the benefit. Worse still, if we do not do it, the benefits will go to people outside our area—the suppliers to the main developers involved in building this 600-acre super-military university, which will be the best there is for military personnel in this country. If we are to meet the timetable and find a cost-effective way of providing a dual carriageway link to the military academy, the only option, in my opinion, is to upgrade the existing Port road, the A4050, to Culverhouse Cross and through to junction 33—not junction 34—of the M4.