Dear First Minister

Firstly, congratulations on being back at the head of the Welsh Government.

Your in-tray is no doubt overflowing following the election and last week’s pantomime in the Senedd.

It goes without saying that saving the steel industry in Wales is the most important immediate task.

Thankfully, there is party political agreement on that subject and full support from the UK Government.

A trickier subject, in terms of a lack of agreement across the Assembly, is the M4 relief road.

The detail of the deal done between your party and Plaid Cymru to place you in your position and allow Labour to operate as a minority administration has yet to be revealed.

I can only hope it does not involve any further delay to the building of the M4 relief road.

That would be a betrayal of this part of Wales, and a kick in the teeth for the economy as a whole.

I first joined the Argus as a journalist in 1989.

The need for a relief road as a solution to the bottleneck on the M4 around Newport was high on the news agenda then.

Yet almost 30 years later we are no further forward and the problems on the motorway, particularly around the Brynglas tunnels, have simply worsened.

The case for the M4 relief road has never been stronger.

Your previous administration spent millions moving the project forward, and there is money available from Westminster.

Compulsory purchase order notices have been sent out.

Public consultations have taken place.

But we are still waiting for the first spade to break ground.

Only last week, the Prime Minister expressed his frustration at the lack of action on the project.

And this week one of your party’s MPs, Newport West’s Paul Flynn, warned of ‘traffic hell’ for decades to come if the preferred ‘black route’ was abandoned as part of any deal with Plaid.

I recognise there is opposition to the black route. We have reported it in detail.

It is important that all voices are heard.

But surely the time for talking has to stop at some point?

Yes, there are legitimate business concerns from the likes of the Roadchef group and Associated British Ports about the black route and they have to be taken into consideration.

However, the vast majority of businesses in this part of Wales are in favour of the relief road.

They lose vast sums of money every year because of hold-ups on the M4.

Yes, there are those who would rather see public money spent on a Metro system. Such a system will help to create an integrated transport system in this area.

But it should be developed as well as the relief road, not instead of it.

The people who believe the Metro alone will be some kind of silver bullet for traffic congestion, magically getting people out of their cars in favour of public transport are well intentioned.

But they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Yes, there are those who believe the blue route is the answer – upgrading the exisiting SDR and the former Llanwern steelworks road.

They are quite wrong. The SDR is already busy. Dumping more traffic on to it will see Newport grind to a halt even more regularly than it does now.

And, yes, there are environmental concerns about the impact of the relief road on the Gwent Levels.

The same old arguments and debates have been going on for almost three decades.

Now is the time to make a decision.

And that decision should be to start work on the relief road this year.

No more talking. No more wasting time and money.

Get it built.

Yours sincerely Kevin Ward,

Editor of the South Wales Argus