ONE THING we learned yesterday is that there won’t be any early start date for the proposed M4 relief road around Newport.

Speaking during the first Plenary session of the new Assembly, First Minister Carwyn Jones pledged to hold a public inquiry before any work starts on the road.

And that means, he said, that the project will not move forward for at least a year.

He said the inquiry would look at a range of options for the project and would explore the Welsh Government’s preferred solution to adopt the so-called black route.

And he confirmed that the inquiry which is due to start later this year would take around a year before coming back with a decision.

This is likely to be met with some disbelief in some quarters, not least among those who have campaigned long and hard for the relief road, which is needed to ease long-running congestion issues around the city.

It may also come as a surprise to those who have seen the compulsory purchase orders for land already set out in black and white.

In our view it seems just another delay to a project which has been mulled over and debated for decades.

While we understand the Assembly Government wants to make sure it gets the detail right on such a major infrastructure project but we wish there was more of a sense of urgency about the whole project.