A roundabout way to cause traffic chaos?

We see that BBC Wales has taken the somewhat radical step of reading a Swansea Council cabinet agenda and have discovered how the fiendish devils at Calamity Hall aim to bring the city centre to a standstill.

A while back we reported on the lot of old boulevards that was envisaged as the next stage in screwing up Swansea’s traffic system and the wacky plan to block off access at the bottom of Wind Street. Now comes confirmation of the intent to rearrange traffic flows on the two bridges that span the River Tawe so as to create a giant roundabout – or gyratory system.

However, our sources tell us that the idea does not have full political backing and that the council’s deputy leader, John Hague, has threatened to resign if it goes ahead. This claim appears seems to be borne out by the absence of Hague’s title, as cabinet member for Highways, from the report due to get rubber stamped on Thursday. Similarly, only staff from Regeneration & Planning departments are named as contact officers.

An insider told us that the usual convention is that an item with such major implications, and especially which is primarily about transport, would be a joint report from both cabinet members. The same source pointed out that the paper which recommends reconfiguring eastern gateway only runs to six and a bit pages whilst a recent planning application for a new house in Gower required an 18 page highways & traffic assessment.

Of course, it must be said that the cabinet is only being asked to approve the capital spending effect of the proposals; the principle of the scheme was apparently approved some time ago – although it’s a safe bet that none of the cabinet members could tell you precisely when the decision was made – or who made it.

Sadly, political circumstances have allowed this governance by stealth to become the hallmark of Lib Dem-run Swansea Council in the last six years. Their promised openness & transparency barely lasted a month when the Pool Sanctuary deal went down the pan. These days, the political leadership no longer even bother pretending that there is a semblance of answerability involved in its management of the capital programme.  

But if the rumours of a serious split at policy level are true, then opposition parties at the very least should be calling for these massive proposed changes to be validated by independent traffic management consultants. Just as importantly, if anyone in the political executive is concerned at what this “reconfiguration” will do to Swansea’s business fortunes then they should have the guts to stand up and say so rather than absent themselves from key meetings as they did during the CapGemini fiasco.