Auditor General’s A465 report details disruption, delays, and overspends
A report released today (February 20) on the A465 Section 2 by the Auditor General, Adrian Compton, has been welcomed by the Shadow Minister for the Economy for highlighting the disruption, delays, and overspends caused in its construction.
The report into the five-mile section between Gilwern and Brynmawr details that the Welsh Government estimates it will cost £321.1 million – up nearly £100m from the initial estimate it produced in 2014. Scheduled for completion in Q3 2018, it was then put back to 2019 and is now scheduled to be finished in 2021.
However, even this seems to be in doubt as the Auditor General’s report contains the line: “The final cost and timescale for Section 2 [of the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road] remain uncertain”.
Russell George AM/AC – the Shadow Minister for Business, Economy, and Infrastructure – commented:
“I, and my Welsh Conservative colleagues, have long had concerns about this project and the Welsh Labour Government’s management of it, and with good reason. The concerns we had when I wrote to the Auditor General in late 2017 asking him to look at this project have been backed up by the report.
“We’re not, however, unsympathetic. It is, after all, a massive infrastructure project.
“As is stated in the report, some of the increase and delay relates to design changes and additional measures to address environmental impacts, but the engineering and contractual challenges experienced on the project account for most of it.
“This is where our criticism – and the criticism from the businesses, commuters, and students affected by these increasing delays – lies. It is not first time that the Welsh Labour Government has managed roads projects that have suffered significant cost increases and delays, and its increasingly vital that lessons are learnt, and learnt now, for future infrastructure schemes.”