The third and final section of Wales’s trunk roads and motorways network has come under the control of a new, larger agency.
Twelve months after the new Mid Wales Trunk Road Agency was set up, Neath Port Talbot council has taken on management of the huge south Wales area. The authority is now responsible for about 1,000 kilometres of motorway and trunk roads between Fishguard and the Severn crossings.
The council’s bid to manage the South Wales Agency was supported by an alliance from both the public and private sectors, and has an annual budget of £40M.
The move to replace the former eight management areas with just three followed publication of a report by Halcrow, produced in 2002, which outlined the significant benefits of rationalisation.
Powys took the lead on the Mid Wales contract in partnership with Ceredigion last April. Six months later, the councils of Conwy, Flintshire, Denbighshire and Wrexham took the reigns of the Northeast Wales trunk road agency.
Head of the trunk road agency at Neath Port Talbot, ~Richard Jones~ said: ‘We have been given the unique opportunity to improve the management, maintenance and delivery of improvements on the motorway and trunk road network in south Wales. ‘These revised arrangements will benefit all road-users.’
The launch of the three areas was staggered at six-monthly intervals, so that any problems with the hand-overs were flagged up before the biggest new contract went live.