Wales Infrastructure Plan - fluff, spin and blame

The irony of First Minister Carwyn Jones raising concerns with the UK Government about the effect of it’s welfare changes on Welsh families while offering up the same old tired ideas on Infrastructure spending that got Wales to state it’s in now and won’t mitigate the impact of welfare cuts, is not lost on this blogger.

Besides it’s a rare occurrence, even in Welsh politics to find a 159 page report that actually says so little about its subject matter. What there is a lot of in the report is ‘context’ for the reduced budgets and lack of ambition from the Welsh Government to look at alternative revenue streams rather than simply raiding their reserves or blaming the nasty Tories and Lib Dems for cutting the Capital budget as it’s other known in the trade. 

Businesses particularly the construction sector, which much of this is aimed at want certainty from the Government and there’s nothing more than vague aspirations around social and economic infrastructure (schools, houses, hospitals and roads) for 2012/13 there's £44m of tokenism new money, a drop in the ocean in terms of the overall budget for

£2,7m for M4 junction improvements

£3m for NEST and £2m for arbed benefiting an extra 1000 homes,£6m to expand the successful Welsh Housing Partnership, levering in an investment of £30m in total to deliver 280 family homes for intermediate rent,

£5m to double the size of the recylcable empty homes fund, contributing to our target of bringing 5,000 empty homes back into use during this Assembly term.

4m to accelerate essential flood protection schemes, reducing the impact of flood and coastal erosion on our communities,

6.8m to accelerate major hospital projects at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and Llandough, £500k to deliver premises for domestic abuse ‘One Stop Shops’ in Pembrokeshire, Swansea and Gwynedd,

£5m to support schools projects in in Lampeter, Denbighshire, Abercynon and Penarth,

£3m for the new Cardiff City Centre post-16 campus,

£3.5m to support essential infrastructure work for the Northern Gateway site in the Deeside Enterprise Zone

£2.5m to boost the Welsh Economic Growth Fund.

The Opposition parties have already pointed out that the report contains a string of re-announcements and small projects that are already underway it’s not surprising all Government do the same, but what’s most disappointing is the lack of ambition even with the limited money they have to spend on Capital projects to give the Welsh economy a timely boost when there is so much uncertainly around and welfare cuts that have hardly started to bite.

The Infrastructure Plan is HERE

Any source