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Cardiff has to be recognised as Wales’s best asset in efforts to improve the competitiveness of the Welsh economy, says the city's council leader, Huw Thomas.

Hundreds of millions in planned successor funding to replace lost EU structural funds to Wales should be run at a city regional level, he said.

And addressing a meeting of Cardiff Breakfast Club, he said that an M4 Relief Road in south Wales is urgently needed, saying that it was unacceptable that, unlike other UK core cities such as Bristol, Birmingham and Leeds, Cardiff still doesn’t have access to a six lane motorway – a reference to the two-lane section around the Brynglas Tunnels in Newport.

With the UK leaving the EU following a transition period in 2020, the UK Government has committed to matching the loss of structural funding that the EU currently provides to some of the most deprived areas of the UK, for which Wales receives around 13% of the total.

In the current 2014-20 funding round, Wales, in places like west Wales and the Valleys, will receive around £2bn in EU structural funding.

The Welsh Government maintains that the proposed successor Prosperity Fund from the UK Government should flow straight into its budget and control.

However, while not explicitly saying that he would seek an alternative route – and that could see it, or part of it, residing with the Wales Office – Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns, says he wants to see a new fund that “responds to the needs of business” and supports them in growing the economy and helping to deliver the UK Government’s industrial strategy.

But now Mr Thomas has put the case for an effective “third way” with the Prosperity Fund being run at a city region level – which in terms of the Cardiff Capital Region covers the 10 local authorities of south east Wales, that has a population of 1.4 million and for which Cardiff is the single largest local authority.

(Image: Richard Swingler)

Speaking at the SSE Swalec Stadium, Mr Thomas said: “Ever since devolution the artificial boundaries of EU funding has split Wales and the Cardiff Capital Region in two. But with EU funding boundaries gone and effective city regional governance in place, I think we can bring forward policies and funding that bring those two areas back together again.

"And that is why I am making the case for the replacement to structural funds, and this is assuming the UK Government makes good on its promise to the people of Wales about replacing structural funding, being spent on a city regional basis with city regional priorities.”

And he said while Cardiff had struggled, like many UK regional cities, to adapt to a post-industrialised world, it had now clearly throw off the shackles of a once gloomy narrative of “managing decline”.

Mr Thomas, who hails from Aberystwyth and became the leader of the biggest local authority in Wales last May aged 31, said Cardiff was well-placed to drive the competitiveness of the Welsh economy, and in a way that reached out to the wider Cardiff Capital Region and beyond.

Cardiff is Wales' best asset

He said: “I believe Cardiff is facing an historic opportunity right now. A generation ago it was grappling with the challenges of de-industrialisation, which brought with it de-population, recession, mass unemployment and the dereliction of many communities, including the one I represent [Splott].”

He added: “And it was not long ago that the population of Cardiff was falling for the first time since the industrial revolution. And government, and certainly central, had accepted a future of managed decline for many of Britain’s cities.

“Today employment growth in our city is the fastest of all the core cities [in the UK]. Population growth is also projected to outstrip all core cities and an incredible fact is that Cardiff’s population growth is forecast to be faster than the whole of the rest of Wales put together.

“We can now say that Cardiff is now truly the economic, cultural and political capital of Wales. And if Wales is to weather the storm of Brexit, then make no mistake, we need to recognise that Cardiff is Wales’s strongest economic asset and is its brightest hope to achieve economic success.

“And the sooner some of the commentariat in the west and the north of the country can appreciate that, then the better as far as I am concerned.

“We have a chance to make Cardiff a truly great world capital, a capital city with a powerful and productive economy with the benefit of growth being felt by all our citizens, as well as shared with our region and the rest of our nation.”

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He said that Cardiff, far from a held perception of sucking in vast swathes of government funding for capital projects, had in fact seen under investment spreading back over the last decades.

The council leader said: “Cardiff has been growing fast, but scarce capital resources has gone elsewhere. Think about it this way, the new Eastern Bay Link Road extension has been the single biggest piece of government investment in Cardiff since 1999... but that is less than one mile of road.”

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While he said the City Deal has an important role to play in the development of the region, it was a relatively modest amount of money that will be invested over the next two decades.

£1.2bn City Deal will not change the world

Of the £1.2bn some £734m has been ring fenced for the next phase of the Metro with electrification of the core Valley Lines. That leaves a wider investment fund of just under £500m – although the aim is for projects supported to leverage four times that in private sector funding.

“It is a useful sum of money, but let’s be honest it is no more than that,” said Mr Thomas.

He added: “To put that into context the EU funding we have received as a region was worth six times as much over the last 20 years, compared to the City Deal over the next 20. And clearly the City Deal, nor the Metro, will not turn the tide of a century of economic decline in the south Wales Valleys.

" It can though act as the catalyst for a grown up approach to city regionalism where honest discussions and also strategic decisions about housing, transport and investments can be taken for the longer term benefit of the whole region and ultimately for Wales. And that in itself would be a big step forward.”

Let's get on with an M4 Relief Road

A public inquiry into an M4 Relief Road in south Wales is expected to conclude this summer, with the Welsh Government to make decision in the autumn. The Welsh Government’s preferred option is the proposed £1bn plus route south of Newport.

Mr Thomas said: “My view on the M4 Relief Road is that it is categorically needed. I cannot accept a situation where Cardiff does not have the same access to a six lane motorway that Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds have. We need to get it built and as quickly as possible.”

Metro Central needs UK Government cash

(Image: Effective Communications)

Following a funding deal for a new bus station at Central Square, Mr Thomas said that shovels will be in the ground on the project next month.

He said: “We always said that a new bus station needs to be part of a comprehensive transport interchange covering the whole site. And that is why I am delighted that the city region has also agreed in principle £40m of public money [City Deal funding] into our Metro Central project, which is the redevelopment of Cardiff Central train station.

“Building on a partnership with Welsh Government, Rightacres and L&G, this forms the basis of a deliverable project to regenerate a train station, where unless we take action will be exceeding capacity on a daily basis by the middle of the next decade. And my message to the Department of Transport is clear, we are coming to the table now with our own money and we expect you to reciprocate.”

Mr Thomas said: “With 90,000 cars per day commuting into Cardiff, this is not a challenge that we can meet alone. And here is where the south Wales Metro is again vital.

“It does feel like we have been talking about it for years [Metro]. but this is a 25 year project and we will understand more when the winning bidder [either MTR or KeolisAmey] is selected in May and we get into discussions with them on what the schemes will look like.

“But I believe it will be worth the wait and we will work constructively with Welsh Government and the delivery partner to make sure it works for Cardiff.”