Wales-England border body loses funding

The organisation behind plans for a tidal lagoon in the Severn Estuary and improved rail connections across south Wales and western England, has lost its UK government funding.

Western Gateway received £1m a year as part of a three-year package announced in 2022, but will now cease to exist in its current form from 6 June.

The UK government announced its intention at the budget last autumn to stop funding so-called pan regional partnerships (PRPs) and wants the new system of elected mayors in England to take up their work instead.

The shadow secretary of state for Wales, Mims Davies, said she was "horrified" by the decision.

Western Gateway is a partnership of 28 local authorities stretching from Pembrokeshire to Swindon and Salisbury.

It had hoped for an exemption from UK government plans, because it is the only PRP to work across the borders of two nations of the UK.

In a statement, the chair of Western Gateway Sarah Williams-Gardener accused UK ministers of refusing to engage.

She said: "This is a hugely disappointing decision from the UK government.

"Despite representation from Welsh government calling for talks on how both governments can work together on this, requests to meet from business and locally elected leaders and MPs, they have refused to engage with any of us from our area on this decision."

Last month a commission set up by the partnership published proposals calling on the UK and Welsh governments to build a tidal lagoon in the Severn Estuary to generate electricity.

In January they revealed plans for faster trains and 30 new railway stations, with reduced journey times of 30 minutes between Cardiff and Bristol and an hour between Bristol and London.

Western Gateway claimed it would add £17bn to the UK economy, but the scheme would depend on significant UK government funding to become reality.

The organisation said it generated over £2m of in-kind and financial support and brought in £100m of funding for the area to try and develop the first small modular nuclear reactors in the UK.

These are cheaper, smaller nuclear power stations which are partly assembled off-site.

Western Gateway started back in 2016 as a collaboration between Cardiff, Bristol and Newport and became a UK-government-supported partnership in 2019.

A spokesperson for the UK government ministry of housing, communities and local government said: "Our Plan for Change commits to ensuring every nation and region realises its full potential.

"Pan-Regional Partnerships have made a valuable contribution but as our English Devolution White Paper sets out, we are now moving to a different model of pan-regional collaboration where we are keen to support new models driven by Mayors and their partners."

Wales does not have a system of devolution to elected mayors, but the UK government has said it would continue to work with the Welsh government to develop local growth plans.

In a letter to Labour's Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens, the Conservative shadow Welsh secretary Mims Davies urged her to get her colleagues to reconsider.

She wrote: "I am absolutely horrified to learn your government has pulled the crucial funding on the incredibly important Western Gateway."

She added: "It is bitterly disappointing that the fantastic work undertaken by the organisation has been cancelled."

Ms Williams-Gardener said the partnership's work showed that the area they covered could become the fastest-growing part of the UK economy outside of London.

BBC Wales has been told that the local authorities were keen to continue working together, but would have to do so without the support provided by Western Gateway.

The Welsh government declined to comment.