Plaid Cymru and Ceredigion Council refuse to support improved Trawscymru connections and a review of a Wrexham to Aberystwyth bus route

Reply-To: john.mct@

Dear Sir/Madam,

This issue affects all residents in Mid and West Wales.  The blatant disregard by the Welsh Labour Government of opportunities for passengers to travel North or South through Aberystwyth to all parts of Wales (to Bangor/Wrexham/Carmarthen/Cardigan/Fishguard/Haverfordwest/

Cardiff/and Swansea) is a disgrace.  Unless a brake is applied to  the plans of the Welsh Transport Minister, Ken Skates, the Trawscymru long distance bus network through West Wales will not fulfil its function.

The 15 minutes of connectivity in Aberystwyth on the 133 mile long T2/T1 route has been transferred to Dolgellau to allow the T2 Bangor to Aberystwyth service to wait for the T3 service arriving from Wrexham/South Clwyd (48 mile route).  The Welsh Government published Transport strategy which contains a key action to improve journey times and reliability on the T2/T1 Bangor to Carmarthen route has been totally ignored. The T2/T1 service has gone backwards and there is now no connectivity going North and limited or no connectivity going South (5 minutes connectivity between T2/T1 services in Aberystwyth which is completely wiped out by delayed T2 departures in Dolgellau, – 5 minutes delayed departture under a Quality Partnership Agreement –  , to wait

for late T3 services from Wrexham and South Clwyd)   There is no such

Quality Partnership Agreement in operation between the T2/T1 services to delay T1 departures in Aberystwyth.  The worst act of vandalism was in January 2018 when the Welsh Government finally stopped all possibility of passengers on the 15.25 T2 departure from Bangor connecting with the last T1 departure to Carmarthen at 18.40 in Aberystwyth., (and thereby stopping those passengers on the T2 from catching the last train to

Cardiff in Carmarthen).   The recent changes that have been carried out

and the 2 new services being reviewed are solely for the benefit of the Transport Minister’s constituents in South Clwyd, and his first act in office was to wave through 600 million pounds of spend on a North East Metro project for his own area around Wrexham, South Clwyd and Flintshire.  Also the Trawscymru T1C coach service introduced in April

2018 between Aberystwyth and Cardiff  cannot be used by passengers North of Machynleth because the T2 service from Dolgellau which arrives at 9.30 in Aberystwyth does not connect with the T1C which departs at 9.30 . There is also no equivalent T1C service going in the opposite direction from Cardiff to Aberystwyth.  On 14/11/2017 Ken Skates announced he had commissioned a “”high level”” review of a T3 service from Wrexham to Aberystwyth in line with the recommendation of the Bevan Foundation review of Trawscymru which recommended Aberystwyth as the destination for the T3 instead of Barmouth .  In Aberystwyth the proposed Wrexham to Aberystwyth service could then connect with the T1 to Carmarthen and T5 to Cardigan/Haverfordwest. This review has not been carried out and the Bevan Foundation report has been ignored by the Welsh Government for a second time.

The Welsh Government have said they will publish their proposals for the Trawscymru network at the end of May 2018. I would urge all parties interested in obtaining “connecting “ Trawscymru services for use by their constituents in Mid and West Wales to write to the Transport Minister to demand better “connecting “ services through Mid and West Wales.

Yours sincerely

John Mctighe