Opinion
A465 dualling: Over budget, over-engineered and over doing 50
Stephen Price
Having grown up in Clydach Gorge, any news report on the dualling of the A465 feels personal.
Engagement events became the norm for the village long before the first machine got to work, and the shadowy threat of environmental damage loomed large for far too long.
In the immediate years prior to its construction, I attended as many community events as possible to drum home the message that we wanted more broadleaf, specifically beech, trees planted, and protection for bats and other native wildlife, and that safe entry points and connection to the village's two districts were prioritised.
Where and when I could, I uprooted smaller beech from the line of fire and planted them higher up in the village - some of which are four times my height now, and like it or lump it, this small village which is cut in half by the A465 got on with things as best it could.
Congestion
I'm no architect, but of all the stretches of the freshly-dualled A465, the 50mph zone is the equivalent of the ugly arse-end of the Christmas tree.
Pick a portion, any portion, but let's start with the approach to Gilwern from Abergavenny.
Driving from Abergavenny at 70mph, passing Govilon on your left, and arriving at Glanbaiden and the slip road to Gilwern presents you with a strange take on Wacky races.
Cars that had been doing 70, 60 or a confused-50 (believe me, many stay in 50 from Abergavenny's Hardwick roundabout onward) invariably meet at the onset of the 50mph limit signs.
And then the painful and congested ascent begins with a taunting, empty lane to the right hand side.
Do I overtake the driver in front doing a mix of 49, 48 and 47mph (yes, I'm counting) and get a potential fine for doing 52, 53..
Do I hang back and create a safer distance and thereby risk arriving at Asda Brynmawr after closing time the following day?
Do I get some life admin done, paint my nails or give my nasal hair a trim? Catch up with some long lost friends?
I don't check my phone, honest, guv.
Like the road itself, however, the options are endless. Besides checking your phone, of course.
On the approach to Clydach from Gilwern, just over the river from Maesygwartha, the road was pointlessly elevated so takes on a climb before a descent that simply wasn't there before or necessary, but it's free money, right?
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Mess
Chatting with a friend recently, I mentioned how I often head to Abergavenny from Brynmawr through North Clydach or Llanelly Hill simply to avoid the road.
Sure, it takes longer, but being from the area it means a more pleasant, wistful drive full of memory-wandering, and a welcome break from a road that just doesn't feel 'right'.
The bridge and pathetti-junction mess at Brynmawr in particular has to be experienced to be believed.
If you're passing Brynmawr by, all is fine, but for those leaving the town or the southern towns of Blaenau Gwent heading east, it's a reacquaintance with the old re-purposed roundabout, followed by a steep incline, across an over-the-top bridge that seems to need constant maintenance, on to another roundabout, and then the slow downhill break-testing descent.
You get a sense that the architects were on a percentage-based payment plan and looked for the most convoluted solution possible, and then stuck a shopping centre over-engineered bridge on top just for fun.
The skyline at the top of the beech-lined gorge with its (once) spectacular waterfalls, known locally as the Fairy Glen, didn't need that tacky addition.
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Irreplaceable
Of course, the road needed better entry points for people leaving Clydach - it's frightening to think that there was simply a junction turning left or right on to the busy road before.
Something had to be done. Lives will be saved.
And it's the locals in this most special valley that paid the heaviest price for the disruption.
Years and years of omnipresent pile-driving and queues of diverted traffic making our roads unsafe, filthy and overcrowded.
Irreplaceable buildings lost, graveyards unearthed, native beech, bluebells, oak lost.. untold damage to precious birds, bats, fungus.
Mature beech trees I swung from and climbed now lost to the over-the-top fly-over that crosses the River Clydach at the meeting point of Clydach South and North, known locally as the 'Saleyard' - their stumps a ghostly reminder beneath the diverted and elevated road.
Road closures meant our commutes were made longer, with the occasional stranded lorry adding extra joy to the proceedings.
Those of us who lived in the Gorge during its construction took our lives into our hands when leaving the village and adjoining the A465 when, overnight, a new roundabout might appear, and we simply had to lump it with the promise of greater good come completion.
The village was held hostage to the slowest of slow progress: My closest friend had to move house when her family home was compulsary-purchased, another friend was injured after a car ploughed into her on the temporary roundabout.
And then to discover that the speed limit would remain at 50?
I think we are all still processing.
Slap in the face
The Welsh Government said the proposed speed limit, similar to the old stretch of road, was "in the interest of road safety" and aimed to "reduce the scheme's environmental impact."
Keith Jones, director of the Institute for Civil Engineers In Wales, said the limit was linked to the road's design.
"If you have quite a difficult terrain, then you can flatten it out so you can travel faster, so people can see any obstacles in the way, a long way away," he said.
"But to do that you would be eating into the existing ground which would raise the cost."
I've raised no objection to 20mph speed limits (online anyway, ahem), but this? This?
Driving on the A465 at 50mph makes driving 20mph in a town centre seem like a rally driving experience. It's just completely off.
I've yet to find a single person from Clydach, Black Rock or Maesygwartha whose lives were interrupted daily, year on year, that is satisfied with driving 50mph with the overbearing threat of average speed cameras even if it has been presented to them by the experts as being in their favour.
I've also yet to see any of the wider economic benefits the road was touted as bringing locally - its obvious purpose being an M4 (and heads of the valleys towns) bypass and east-west link. It was never for us.
As it stands, it's a slap in the face for those who were most affected, for the longest amount of time.
Leaving the A465 as it was between Gilwern and Brynmawr and installing a roundabout at Clydach would have saved us all a lot of heartache, time and money, and we'd all be travelling at just the same speed in the one same lane, only with a feeling of it being justified.
Petitions have been created, signed, and forgotten, and we have no choice but to accept the status quo.
But for most nearby it's still not sitting right, and probably never will.
But what do we know.
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