One of these will be transport. We must find a way to reduce the pollution from the millions of vehicles that clog our roads, belching out deadly fumes. The pandemic has made a huge impact with car production last year the lowest for 34 years, but it could rebound once we can all take to the road again. This must be prevented.
One way would be to rebuild the country’s railway system, devastated by the 1963 Beeching report - author Dr Richard Beeching, the then British Railways Chairman. It led to the closure of one-third of the whole system, 4,000 miles, affecting urban and rural areas.
At last the government is taking action to repair some of the damage; the most important, the HS2 project, costing over £100 billion.
There are other, infinitely cheaper projects needed, like the revival of the Oxford to Cambridge and Newcastle to Allerton links just announced.
South Wales suffered as badly from Beeching as the rest of the country. I was involved in a campaign to save one of the threatened lines, the scenic Brecon to Newport route. As public relations officer for Caerphilly urban district council I stood on the Nelson station platform early in the morning counting passengers going to work, aiming to show how important the line was. We failed.
I remember it, too.from my reporting days. I used to walk, often as late as midnight, from my digs to the local station, leaving my press envelope with my stories to reach head office in Newport early next morning.
That was fifty years before the internet and emails that flash the news around the world in seconds.
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