AS YOU will have seen, the Argus has re-launched our Get Us Back On Track campaign, calling for a direct rail link between Newport and Ebbw Vale to be restored.

Long-time readers will remember we first ran the campaign in 2002 - and the fact that nothing has happened 16 years later is baffling.

The Welsh Government has made a big song and a dance about getting us to leave our cars at home and use public transport - so their repeated failure to get the link restored borders on parody. A decent number of people travel between Newport and Ebbw Vale for work every day - and the journey they face at the moment is an arduous one, involving a mix of buses and trains, or a trip via Cardiff - in completely the wrong direction.

In reality, most of them drive - exactly what the Welsh Government doesn't want.

Anyone who has the misfortune of driving on Gwent's roads on a regular basis knows we're already way beyond capacity, so beefing up our public transport is just what we need.

So restoring the Newport to Ebbw Vale link makes even more sense now than it did in 2002.

It's no accident that we've re-launched the campaign as the new contract for the Wales and Borders franchise is announced.

Arriva Trains Wales has been running rail services across Gwent for the past 15 years, but in October the contract will be handed to French-Spanish partnership KeolisAmey. The full details of the contract have yet to be revealed, but our message to KeolisAmey is the Newport to Ebbw Vale link must form part of it.

As part of the contract KeolisAmey will also have responsibility for setting up and running the South Wales Metro - part of the Welsh Government's attempts to get us off our cars and onto public transport, so including the link, which, after all, involves just one whole mile of track, makes perfect sense.

Perhaps encouragingly KeolisAmey also runs Nottingham's tram system which, I can say for experience having lived in the city for a year, is very well-run, with regular and efficiently-run services.

If they can bring some of that to Gwent we could be on the right track.

Failure to set up the link would show not only a lack of will to improve public transport in Wales, but also a lack of interest in Gwent and the South Wales Valleys - already an area which feels more than a little hard done by of late.

Some have predicted the South Wales Metro and the whole Wales and Borders franchise will be set up in a way designed to funnel people in and out of Cardiff - neglecting the wider Valleys area. This must not be the case.

Restoring the Newport to Ebbw Vale link would not only be a valuable move to people in Gwent, but also a great show of faith in the area.

If we're here in 16 years still talking about this something has gone seriously wrong.

- It's half term recess in both the Assembly and Parliament so there's not much going on in the world of Welsh politics.

Just the continued build-up to the contest to determine who will be our new first minister, the impending arrival of the M4 relief road inquiry report, the finalisation of the Wales and Borders rail contract, the ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Carl Sargeant and the minor issue of Brexit - now less than a year away.

Not much at all, really.