Welsh Transpor t Needs Debated
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THE Minister of Housing and Local Government, Sir Keith Joseph, said that no decision had been made by the Government about which areas were to be surveyed for passenger transport needs (see page 963). Only a few were to be done, but he undertook to press Mr. Marples to see that one of the areas should be in Wales.
Asked wheher it would he mid-Wales, Sir Keith said he would not like to commit himself, but if that was where the need was greatest, there he hoped it would be. The Minister was winding up a debate on Wales and Monmouthshire, in which several M.P.s had expressed anxiety about the future of transport in the region.
Lady Megan Lloyd George (Labour, Carmarthen), who opened for the Opposition, doubted whether the new roads built or projected in Wales would solve the problem. The recent survey conducted by industrialists in the country had revealed that, based on present-day standards of traffic capacity, 47 per cent, of the total mileage of rural trunk roads in South Wales was overloaded. It concluded that if the traffic growth continued at five per cent—a conservative estimate—the overloading percentage would go up by half as much again during the next 10 years.
She noted that the report was drawn up long before the Beeching proposals in regard to rail closures, and said the congestion which would arise as a -result of these would be on top of the estimate made by the industrialists themselves. Were the Government prepared to say that if rail closures on a substantial scale took place in Wales, they would consider sanctioning increased expenditure on roads, asked Lady Megan.