Assembly ignoring region, says Tory

Delays in building a Mid Wales bypass are further examples of the region being sidelined, according to a Powys politician.

Glyn Davies, Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Montgomeryshire, is angry at the continuing delays to the planned Middletown bypass on the A458 between Welshpool and Shrewsbury.

Improvements to the A458 between Welshpool and the English Border were first proposed in the 1980s and, four years ago, there was a formal consultation by the Assembly to assess opinion on the preferred route.

But, Mr Davies said, since then nothing has happened.

He said: “I wrote two years ago as a local Assembly Member to Andrew Davies, then roads minister in the Assembly Government, to ask about delays and was told he was meeting the UK Transport Secretary to ‘discuss cross border issues’.”

“The present roads minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, was recently asked the same question and was told ‘this is an issue I aim to discuss with Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly when I meet her’.”

Mr Davies added: “It looks as if the meeting I was promised in 2006 still hasn’t happened. The cross-border issues clearly haven’t been sorted out two years on.

“The ongoing delays in the construction of the Middletown bypass are totally unacceptable, and another example of Montgomeryshire being ignored by the Assembly Government.