Making Spaces and Going Places... (thanks Neil Harris!)
On the 4th June 2026, and in partnership with Freshwater, Capital Law, Arup, Mott MacDonald, Cardiff University, Transport for Wales and Cardiff Capital Region, (and me, Mark Barry!) we are holding the “Metro and Us” event.
This builds on the successful 2018 “Metro and Me” event and associated collection of essays and will provide a forum to discuss the potential wider benefits of the South Wales Metro and how we capture them.
In fact, given the questions, challenges and opportunities raised in 2018 are still the same, this narrative is based in the main, on the one I prepared in 2018 – and still on the IWA website!
For me, the key objectives of the event are:
- #1 the need to set out and sell the direct benefits of the Metro and what is still needed, and
- #2 to shape what we still need to do to realise its wider vision and benefits.
This is not just about enhanced regional public transport connectivity and reduced car dependency (for the Cardiff Capital Region’s 1.6M people). To note: the current valleys focussed phase of the Metro is an enormous boost to the valleys (esp. when seen alongside the completion of the £1Bn Heads of the Valleys Road and initiatives like TfW’s Ffeibr)
It is more about the catalytic opportunity to attract investment, and stimulate sustainable economic development and regeneration, especially to help address some of the regions broader issues (eg more homes, high street regeneration, skills, community regeneration, etc) – and this is not just about Cardiff, its about the whole region.
I also have a personal focus, that being to see “Cardiff” get a Metro (so 4tph across all the stations in the city as part of Cardiff Crossrail Phase 2). So, I will be seeking further measures to address this omission in the current Metro programme so that it delivers on what I set out back in my 2011 report!
The event will have six main sessions:
- Opening session – Chair Intro, my scene setting and some words from a Snr Welsh Politician
- Mobility and Metro – what are we getting, and what might be the future of Metro
- Economy & Investment – what’s required to increase investment & sustainable growth?
- Regeneration & Housing – esp. Transit Oriented Development (TOD)/Placemaking/Social Regeneration
- Culture/Society/Environment – exploring these wider issues through the eyes of young people
- Final session: Governance & Funding – who makes all this happen, and who pays?
So, a lot to cover!
If you want to be included and/or sponsor, display, etc pls contact Freshwater via the event website “Metro and Us“.
A little more context…
I have been involved in the “South Wales Metro” (or Cardiff Capital Region Metro as it was then known) since 2010/11. That was when the first of several reports and studies I authored or contributed to appeared in the public domain. “A Metro for Wales’ Capital City Region – Connecting Cardiff Newport and the Valleys”, was published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs and the now defunct Cardiff Business Partnership (which included businesses like Admiral, Legal & General & PWC ). The report was launched at an event at Cardiff City Hall in March 2011, which another main supporter of my Metro work, Cardiff Council, provided to me free of charge. It galvanised widespread support for investment in transport infrastructure to support the region’s economy. Something we also managed via the 2013 Metro Impact Study
In 2026 we can see the transformation of the Metro infrastructure and services is nearly complete. New Stadler electric Tri-modes and Bi-mode trains have been running around the valleys rail network for over a year. Just last November, I attended an event in Taffs Well to formally mark and celebrate the opening of the South Wales Metro tram-train depot. These tram trains should start operating this year, with the full Metro timetable with more frequent and faster journeys to the Heads of the Valleys following sometime in 2027.
From my spark of an idea in 2011 to a fully flamed metro by 2027 is testament to senior Welsh Government officials and Ministers who held their nerve on this challenging and potentially transformative project.(especially: Carwyn Jones, Mark Drakeford, Ken Skates, Eluned Morgan, Edwina Hart, Rebecca Evans, Lee Waters, Julie Morgan). One also has to applaud the efforts of the team at TfW led by James Price in delivering this programme.
This is remarkable progress given projects of this scale typically take decades to develop and, in many places, fail, stall or get watered down; the contrast with HS2 in England could not be starker. So, we must congratulate Welsh Government and Transport for Wales on getting here.
Whilst building and operating the Metro is clearly a challenge, it is not perhaps the biggest. All of us in the Cardiff Capital Region need to fully engage in a debate about the kind of region we want to build in the next 10 to 20 years. Clearly, much improved accessibility will help – but this must be a catalyst for a much bigger transformation.
Whilst we have made some progress with the CCR, strategic solutions still require in my view more innovation re: governance and funding, especially re: land use planning, transport and economic development. In particular we need to avoid the kind of developments that depend predominantly on car access and ownership.
Overtly we need to locate homes, jobs, shops, public services, visitor attractions, etc in places that can be easily connected with good quality and environmentally friendly public transport. This also means, in some cases, we have to introduce measures that discourage and disincentives out of town car based shed development. It is often the corporate extraction of local value to distant balance sheets associated with such activities that has done so much damage to the fabric and vitality of our towns and high streets.
This means more Transit Oriented Development in more places.
This is equally true in parts of Cardiff as it is in many communities across the valleys. In fact, despite some assertions to the contrary, there are more people in Cardiff living in communities in the top10% of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) than any other local authority in Wales (about 20% of the Welsh total); in fact, nearly twice as many as the next on the list, RCT, closely followed by Swansea, Newport and Neath. For all the shiny progress in the city centre and bay, Cardiff is no Emerald City.
Whilst good transport connectivity is not on its own sufficient to ensure benefits to these communities, it is a necessary component of a solution.
So, I will not let Cardiff get overlooked re Metro services, and especially service frequencies of 4tph as a bare minimum. So, we need to see Metro delivered in Cardiff as well the valleys north of Cardiff – and especially the need to confirm funding for Cardiff Crossrail Phase 2.
Aside from the rail-based core of the South Wales Metro, there is perhaps the more challenging need to re-design our bus networks as part of an integrated and joined up public transport offer, The Bus Reform Bill just passed will ease the way to bus franchising in SE Wales over the next 5 years. This though is as much a cultural challenge as it is an operational one.
However, we have deeper problems that go beyond accessibility and in many cases go back generations, related to poverty, economic inactivity, social inclusion/exclusion, housing, skills, social infrastructure etc. We need to go much further and develop innovative regeneration programmes that reflect our unique urban geography and green infrastructure, engage local communities and exploit our artistic, cultural and industrial heritage.
So, to complement a traditional bricks and mortar connectivity led economic development & regeneration approach (as we have seen in Cardiff City Centre, Bay, Pontypridd and soon I hope at Cardiff Parkway), we also need a community, high street and social infrastructure focussed effort right access the region.
In doing so, aside from the clear opportunity for more city centre and station-based developments, we also need exploit opportunities in better connected places across the region (as a result of Metro) that have struggled to attract development in the past.
The role of the foundational economy is key here to support more traditional “bricks and mortar” interventions which can work in places like Pontypridd. The support and encouragement of local food, tourism and culture/heritage-based economies could play a key role especially in communities like the Rhondda. The role and function of the FE sector and organisations like Coleg Y Cymoedd, Cardiff and Vale College, etc are going to be vital in empowering our young people with the right skills.
The “Metro and Us” Event in June will begin to unpack some of these challenges and opportunities and perhaps help to better articulate the questions the region faces.
Perhaps the biggest are: what sort of homes does the region need? and where should we build them; what sort of economy do we want or will we get, and what sort of jobs and skills does that imply; how do we build a new future for the region whilst respecting and engaging all its communities. In doing all this we have to also pay heed to the existential challenge of Climate Change and the rapid take up of AI.
It is not just Welsh Government and Transport for Wales who have to lead, the city region and all its local authorities must also take up the challenge to help develop collectively a coherent response to the challenge and the opportunities.
So, we must view the Metro as more than a transport project and as catalyst for change, so we can begin to develop a region fit for the 21st Century and our Future Generations. I am optimistic we can, in fact we don’t have a choice. We must.
The Metro and Us Event on 4th June is being developed with the support of: Capital Law, Arup, Mott MacDonald, Professor Mark Barry, Cardiff University, Cardiff Capital Region, Transport for Wales and Freshwater.
The event’s other sponsors include: TBC
For those with a wider interest in the South Wales Metro and how it all came about, well I put all the details in a book which I published in 2024 – “How to build a Metro“. Enjoy!
