Farcical travel plans waster public money (Kirsty Williams AM )

Cymraeg
English

Kirsty Williams AM <info@kirstywilliams.org.uk>

Farcical travel plans waster public money

February 23, 2007 11:02 AM

Welsh Liberal Democrat Enterprise, Innovation and Networks spokesperson, Kirsty Williams, has expressed her concern at some of the journey-to-work travel plans being commissioned by the Assembly Government.

The plans, being produced by a non-for-profit company in partnership with the Assembly Government, are supposed to encourage people to use public transport on their journeys to and from work, but some of the routes being suggested seem to make little sense.

Ms Williams said: "The idea behind these plans is an excellent one, and I am fully supportive of schemes which make it easier for people to make more environmentally-friendly transport choices. My concern is that this project, by generated such negative attention, is actually doing the public transport agenda more harm than good.

"I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are concerned that their taxes are being used to produce unhelpful, and in some cases positively bizarre, travel plans that are of no use to anybody. I know of one individual, for example, who lives a five minute walk from her place of work, and yet her plan suggests a bus journey to another town and back again. I have written to the Transport Minister, Andrew Davies, to ask him to look into this matter with some urgency, to determine what is going wrong with these plans, and to make sure that in future tax-payers money is only spent on providing travel information that is useful."

Notes:

· PTI Cymru works in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government, local authorities and bus operators to produce personalised journey plans for individuals in businesses and organisations across Wales, at no cost to the recipients. The project costs £30,000 a year to run and, since its inception in May 2004, has produced 65,000 plans.