The Western Mail says that First Minister Carwyn Jones has been accused of misleading the public, after claiming a £90m road was delivered “on budget ” even though it cost double the original estimate.
Opening the Church Village bypass in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Mr Jones said: “It has been completed on time and on budget.” But Assembly documents released in 2001 show that £90m is double the estimated cost when the WAG began to fund the bypass scheme.
They say that in January 2001, the Welsh Assembly Government unveiled a £300m five-year transport package. It listed the Church Village bypass for 2005-06 and said the road’s “approximate total costs” were £34m.
A year later, WAG allocated RCT council £750,000 for preparatory work on the bypass scheme. The “estimated total scheme costs” were £34.8m – which is £45m in today’s prices if the headline inflation rate is applied. Three years ago the Porth relief road, also in RCT, was opened. It had cost £99m, compared with WAG’s £33m estimate in its January 2001 announcement.
Jenny Randerson AM, the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ transport spokeswoman, said: “It’s clearly misleading to say it’s on time and on budget.
“I remember this being discussed almost the entire life of the Assembly. The most worrying thing about this is how much the repeated delays have cost. If they’d had to deal with something which was totally unexpected and of considerable size, I would expect them to explain why the cost had escalated so much. Even taking into account inflation, it’s twice the cost it should have been.”
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They should be building more cycleways and expanding train links rather than encouraging people to drive more with new roads.
“First Minister Carwyn Jones has been accused of misleading the public, after claiming a £90m road was delivered “on budget ” even though it cost double the original estimate.”
Carwyn Jones is taking on the black-box approach of his Deputy Ieuan Wyn Jones:
Over budget data-> Technium filter -> “delivered on budget”