Completion date confirmed for Heads of the Valleys road by Welsh Government

The Welsh Government has announced when current work on the Heads of the Valleys road, a road development project that has been a number of years in the making, will finish.

Work on the current section, Dowlais to Hirwaun, started in 2021 and the project is estimated to cost more than a billion pounds to complete but it is due to be finished by summer 2025.

The Welsh Government said the project will improve accessibility, reduce journey times, provide extra resilience and reliability and enhance road safety.

It says the A465 (Hirwaun to Dowlais) project when completed later this year will have delivered 17.7km of new dual carriageway, 6.1km of sideroads, more than 14km of active travel routes 30 new bridges and 28 retaining walls.

As well as connecting communities by linking the Valleys, South and West Wales to the English Midlands and beyond, the Welsh Government says the scheme has also created significant opportunities for the local economy.

It said more than 2,000 new jobs have been created, with more than half of those employed living locally, and also employed 158 apprentices.

To mitigate the ecological impacts of the road building, the Welsh Government said a number of measures were taken like the relocation of species such as great crested newt and marsh fritillary butterfly.

But the scheme's been controversial in some areas with residents complaining about the disruption. Some claim damage has been caused to their homes by vibrations of the works while others say the noise has been a constant frustration.

The Welsh Conservatives have welcomed the news of completion of an infrastructure project but said people would be right to question whether the cost of the project, was worth it.

Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure, Peter Fox MS said: “This overbudget and well behind schedule project epitomises Labour’s 25 years of failure here in Wales.

“By scrapping many other vital infrastructure projects like the much-needed M4 relief road, the cost of which would have nearly been covered by the Heads of the Valleys price tag, the Welsh public will rightly question whether this gargantuan expense was worth it."

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