Madam,

On 15 May you published a letter, 'AM must campaign for better connectivity', in which I suggested Elin Jones could direct her efforts to obtaining better bus service coverage on the Aberystwyth to Cardiff route, ie a return to two T1C services per day to Cardiff, improved connectivity on the T2/T1 route through Aberystwyth, and a TrawsCymru route from Aberystwyth to Wrexham.

On 23 January in the Welsh Assembly Plenary, Ken Skates, Minister for Transport made a statement: “It is my intention to subject some of the emerging proposals and choices to a public consultation in the second half of this year. We are determined that, in the future, schemes coming forward will be robust, deliverable and based on a sound strategic imperative and economic analysis.”

With respect to the Trawscymru bus network this consultation has not happened and tenders have been put out for three new Trawscymru services - T10: Bangor - Betws y Coed - Corwen - Chirk – Oswestry, T11: Machynlleth - Newtown - Welshpool – Wrexham, T12: Machynlleth - Newtown - Montgomery - Welshpool – Wrexham.

These three new routes have been introduced with no documents available to the public on why these routes have been chosen.

There has been no “sound strategic imperative and economic analysis”.

All three routes are beneficial to the constituents of Ken Skates, in Wrexham and south Clwyd.

This is good news of a kind with a T11/T12 route from Wrexham to Machynlleth in Powys, but the problems in Aberystwyth remain unaddressed.

I have therefore written to both Ben Lake, MP and Elin Jones, AM to request that they ask Mr Skates the following questions on transport:

(a) When will the review of the Aberystwyth to Wrexham Trawscymru route, which was recommended by the Winckler report and which was finally commissioned on 14 November last year by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport (Ken Skates), be completed, reported on and available for public examination?

(b) When will the Feasibilty Study/Review/Business Case, (ie the justification document for the above T10/T11/T12 Trawscymru services), be reported on and available for public examination?

(c) When will the Welsh Government Transport Strategy for key action to improve reliability and journey times on the T2/T1 Bangor/Carmarthen route through Aberystwyth be acted upon?

(d) When will the Welsh Government reverse the changes of 1 January to the T2 timetable in Aberystwyth, which did nothing other than deliberately destroy connectivity in Aberystwyth? The T2 Aberystwyth departure changed from 10.05am to 10am, reversing a 2016 decision by the previous Transport Minister, Edwina Hart, and the T2 arrival at 6.40pm changed to 6.50pm making it absolutely impossible to connect with the last T1 to Carmarthen departing at 6.40pm.

Yours etc,

Dr John McTighe, Llanrhystud.

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