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Pothole Land signs, Wrexham (John Williams, Facebook)Welsh government could cut cycle lane funding to fix roads, as councillor calls for active travel budget to be diverted in area dubbed ‘Pothole Land’
Cycling funding in Wales could be reduced and diverted to deal with the country’s pothole problem, the Welsh transport secretary allegedly told a councillor in Wrexham, where the local authority has been urged to reallocate some of its active travel budget to repair the roads in an area recently dubbed ‘Pothole Land’ by campaigners.
Earlier this week, Wrexham Council’s deputy leader Dave Bithell told the local authority’s homes and environment scrutiny committee that Ken Skates, Wales’ current cabinet secretary for transport and North Wales, is considering cutting the Labour government’s Active Travel Fund to pay for a “resilient roads” programme.
Bithell revealed the minister’s intentions – which have allegedly divided the Welsh government – as the committee received an update on Wrexham’s own active travel programme, which aims to create safe cycling and walking routes in key areas, particularly around schools. The programme forms part of the Welsh government’s wider goal to ensure that 45 per cent of all journeys are made by active travel and public transport by 2041.
However, despite the programme receiving around £4.6 million in centralised funding over the past year, a recent audit found that 47 per cent of active travel routes in and around the city were rated either ‘failed’ or ‘critically failed’, and deemed to require significant work to bring up them up to national standards.
Despite this scathing indictment of Wrexham’s cycling and walking infrastructure, Dyffryn Ceiriog councillor Trevor Bates asked during the meeting whether any of the current Active Travel budget could be set aside for pothole repairs.
(John Williams, Facebook)
Bates represents a ward in the nearby Ceiriog valley in north-east Wales, where earlier this month disgruntled residents erected signs and banners declaring the area ‘Pothole Land’, in a bid to draw attention to the disastrous state of the local roads, which they argue have been neglected by Wrexham Council.
The satirical signs – parodying those found at theme park attractions – tell ‘visitors’ that they will experience “two kilometres of award winning potholes with very little actual road to spoil your fun” and that the potholes on offer are “guaranteed to be the deepest, longest, and widest” in Wales.
Councillor Bates’ car also fell victim to the rutted road surfaces in the Ceiriog valley recently, forcing him to fork out £600 in repairs.
And speaking at this week’s committee meeting, Bates claimed that, despite the area not having a designated cycle route – but an “awful lot of cyclists” – the area’s pothole problem was the most pressing issue for both people on bikes and in cars, and called on the council to divert some active travel funding to road repairs.
“I’m delighted to see that the report mentions active travel for all wards,” Bates told the meeting, Wrexham.com reports. “We don’t have a designated cycle route in the Ceiriog Valley but we do have an awful lot of cyclists.
“The one thing they keep telling me is they’re fed up with potholes, to be honest. I’m just wondering if we could use some of this money?
“If you share out the Active Travel budget among the 56 councillors that equates to about £80,000 – we could use to repair some of these potholes.”
(John Williams, Facebook)
In response, the local authority’s deputy leader Bithell admitted that it was possible to spend some of the council’s active travel funding on road repairs, and that discussions were currently being held within the government concerning plans to cut the national cycling and walking fund, in order to increase investment in tackling the country’s pothole problems.
“I have raised active travel funding with the transport secretary Ken Skates. He has said authorities are allowed to use some aspects of active travel funding for road repairs,” Bithell said.
“The minister is looking at reducing the active travel fund down from its current levels to put more money into resilient roads. Those discussions have been taking place with the Welsh government.
“I’m not sure it’s going to happen this financial year because I know there are differing views in the Welsh government about the use of active travel funding.
“But in respect of potholes, clearly I’m aware of the issues that have been raised around ‘Pothole Land’, and I spoke with the Chief Officer for Environment who is going to arrange a meeting with Cllr Bates in the near future to look at the problems there in detail.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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30 comments
I concur with many of those who would prefer to see the roads fixed, rather than funding for additional, often sub-optimal, cycling specific infrastructure.
The best use of resources is always - the best use of resources?
I rarely use cycle lanes as the vast majority is just not fit for purpose. I could be crude but I'm endeavouring to be stoic in 2025 🤔
Counter argument is that if the problem is crap infra (cycle lanes, shared space, ASLs...) the fix is "proper infra". But in the UK it it's often hard to see how that happens.
The flip side is "it's tempting to say 'I'm mostly alright Jack' - but if your problem is motor traffic the fix has to be 'fewer trips driven' - which doesn't come about via fixing roads".
(But to persuade people in the UK to not drive a journey takes a lot, including truly excellent alternatives to driving).
How's about, if you use active transport funding to fix a road it straightaway becomes default 20mph so everyone can use it in relative safety?
I think that the Wrexham Council should do this but concentrate on roads that many who cycle and walk would use, I do not know if they have access to heat maps, but there are a many roads that are used that are in shocking state for example Stansty Chain road, coming to and from the old mold road and villages beyond (Gwersyllt and Summer Hill) that links them to the City center. There is a short section of cycle path that joins the two roads across the new Mold road, This road is used so as to avoid the main roundabout on the A484 and the nightmare BQ roundabout. This road is in terrible condition and needs work ASAP, there are many such roads that are needed and fixing them could benefit all road users.
Just turn pothole land into a cycle lane, the motorists will of course continue to use it but they might give cyclists priority.
Actually they're more likely to drive down it at full speed to not get caught.
Bit of a strange one as I have to side with Councillor Bates on this one, I'm not too sure where a designated cycle route would go in the Ceiriog Valley thus rendering an allocated budget useless and unwanted. Yes, it's a great area for cycling but having to spend money on unnecessary infrastructure is a waste. This, of course, does not apply across the rest of Wrecsam. One has to wonder by how much revenue would increase if the Barnett formula was removed and Cymru was able to take charge of its own finances.
It's pretty unlikely that Wrexham council was looking to create cycling infrastructure in that part of the Ceiriog valley, which is out in the sticks.
This is about reallocating government money from one transport pot to another within the council's budget. But the problem is that the pitiful amount for cycling infra won't fix many potholes and will mean even less for cycling.
Sadly, any roads they 'fix' will deteriorate again within a short period of time. Narrow rural back lanes like this one above Pontfadog are vulnerable to damage by ever-larger (and wider) tractors and their trailers, bin lorries and delivery vehicles such as DPD and Amazon.
They are too big and heavy, they damage the verge and expose the edge of the road surface, which then breaks off. The weight also breaks up any patching done. I see it all the time here around the Shropshire/Wales border. The persistent rain over the last 18 months or more has exacerbated the problem, speeding up erosion of the broken surfaces.
Perhaps the people who use those large vehicles on tiny roads should pay enough 'Road Tax' to repair the damage they cause instead of stealing it from the cycling budget.
The size of milk collection tankers...
I'm not too sure where the dairy farms are in the valley.
Unlikely on little back lanes like these.
And I can't recall seeing any dairy cows in the area, with its steep valleys and thin soils. It's almost all sheep. They will be on the flatter, more nutrient-rich grassland of west Cheshire and north Shropshire.
Is it really? I wouldn't have known. Thanks.
To the point, if the allocation in the first place is wrong, then reallocation doesn't become an issue. Where in that area would need any form of cycling infra? Is Y Waun included in Dyffryn Ceiriog ward? The A5 and perhaps Station Rd are the only places where infra would be beneficial. Why was it allocated cycling budget in the first place? The problem here is that money was allocated where it wasn't necessary and as for raising revenues see my comments about the not fit for purpose Barnett formula, and I also agree that people use unsuitable vehicles on some of those lanes and need to learn how to drive on them.
You seem to have bought into this misleading quote:
But that's not how funding works. The budget is for the whole of the Wrexham area - there's no reasonable expectation that that should be evenly divided between each individual ward, any more than there is with any other element of the budget.
Surely that's precisely my point. Don't spend/allocate money where it's not needed. There is no need for cycling infrastructure anywhere in Dyffryn Ceiriog.
Except the money in question hasn't been allocated there. It's money for cycling infrastructure in the Wrexham area generally.
Is that a different way of saying 'Don't spend/allocate money where it's not needed.'?
No. Not unless you have a very contorted way of using the English language.
As you agree with me, I don't understand your point.
You said you agree with Councillor Bates, whose case is that there is £80k of active travel budget for Dyffryn Ceiriog and no active travel projects there to spend it on, so it should be spent on resurfacing roads instead.
But there is no £80k of active travel budget for Dyffryn Ceiriog - just a big pot of it for the whole of the Wrexham area. They haven't 'allocate[d] money where it's not needed'. If you took £80k out of that pot to resurface roads, you'd be taking it away from places that do need it elsewhere in the Wrexham area.
Which is likely to be the councillor's reasoning for nabbing it to spend on fixing the roads, which are "essential". It will probably make him more popular with voters, though to be fair that is the purpose of an elected official so one can't blame him for that.
But we don't know how the money was allocated, as mdavidford says. I'd be very surprised if each ward was given an equal slice of the (very small) cycling infra pie.
Putting a bike lane along the A5 would be madness, especially on the 2 viaducts over the Ceiriog and Dyfrdwy / Dee.
The viaducts are unlikely to be (not) in Dyffryn Ceiriog ward and I don't think anyone is suggesting that there should be a bike lane there, unless I've missed something.
Think those roads are bad? Have a look at the road between Northwood and Bettisfield. All the minor roads on the Shropshire Wales border are in a very bad state.
In other Welsh driving news, this time good
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w1891z03o
Saw that - and also a reassurance that politicians on both sides aren't necessarily keen on fewer deaths and injuries - if the way to that irks some drivers.
Eg:
It's not about safety - perhaps it's about ... respect!? (Maybe the woke and the anti-woke aren't that far apart in some ways...?)
The local authorities in Wales have always been able to turn 20mph zones back to 30mph. I believe that the argument about implementation is actually about responsibility. The local authorities wanted more guidance. However, it's really simple, If you carry out a risk assessment that shows that 30mph is safe, then do it. If you got it wrong, of course, it's on your head.
You've got to love a tory...
These CONservatives have obviously never seen the shit fest of implementation in england. On a 1 mile journey in Caer I can pass through a 30mph, an unclear 20mph, a 20mph, back to 30mph, then 20mph, a short stretch of 30mph and finally 20mph. All in residential or student commutes.
Indeed, putting it in a manifesto, being voted into power and then making good on a manifesto promise would easily confuse a tory.
How anyone can look at these whinging tories and think that they are the people to take control of anything is beyond me.
I suspect it's probably less about Respect, and more about Reform...
Road repairs are a collection of bottomless pits- they might just as well close the active travel programme altogether instead of pretending they're spending the money 'for the good of all road users'
I thought road tax pays for this stuff, silly me.
TIL Wales even has cycle lanes. Lived in SW Wales for three years now and I've not actually seen one yet.
Sounds like you won't be either.