Electrify Wales! | "Wales risks being held ransom to ever increasing oil prices"

12.00.00am GMT Wed 12th Dec 2007

A leading member for the National Assembly for Wales has warned that Wales risks "being held to ransom to ever increasing oil prices" and needs to move away from a "dependence on oil" to ensure public transport becomes an attractive alternative to the car.

Speaking today, Michael German, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said that Wales was one of the few countries in the whole of Europe that was 100 per cent dependent on petrol and oil for running its public transport networks.

"In Wales we don't have a single tram, an electric powered bus or one mile of railway converted to electric. We in Wales risk ever higher oil prices impacting on the price of a bus or train ticket."

Mr. German was commenting as the UK Government announced that they were planning to replace current trains with new diesel trains on the London to South Wales line in 2104. "This is despite the fact that Network Rail themselves say that new diesel trains will be much more expensive to build after 2012."

The UK Government refuses to electrify the main London to South Wales line and this means we in Wales we left behind facing crippling oil prices when the rest of Europe already has large parts of the railway networks electrified.

"Network rail says it makes sense to electrify whole lines at a time rather than in bits and they say it makes sense to electrify the whole network. However the Department for Transport says they don't have the money whilst the UK Government gives its blessing to the spending of billions to build a new runway and terminal at Heathrow", added Mr. German.

"We have to end Wales' dependence on oil. We are effectively being left behind by the UK government that has no vision to modernise every part of the UK . We have to get ready for the day, not too far away, where oil supplies will be volatile and the cost crippling. If we don't start electrifying now, public transport will be very expensive, very soon."