Welsh Government Spend £6 Million on Buying Houses for M4 Relief Road | "Tax payer out of pocket by the millions"

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 7th Oct 2009

A senior Assembly Member has expressed anger with the news that the Welsh Assembly Government will have spent over £6 million on buying up land and property that lay in the path of the proposed M4 relief road, only now for the Government to start selling back properties in a depressed property market.

The news of potential loss to the taxpayer reaching millions was revealed by local Assembly Member Michael German. The figures released in answer to question put by Mr. German to the Deputy First Minister, Iuean Wyn Jones, comes after the figures were released during the summer that £16 million on design and development of the new motorway. The news of further millions spent on buying land and property along the route will cause further embarrassment to the Plaid-Labour coalition government.

In answers to questions posed to the Deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, posed by local Assembly Member Michael German that fourteen properties had been purchased at a cost of £5.2 million. In addition a further £340,000 was spent in legal fees.

Liberal Democrat Mr. German said that the amounts were staggering amount of money to buy up a small number of properties on the line of the new M4 relief road and said that "it was unlikely that the Labour - Plaid Government would get back all of the taxpayers' money spent.

Mr. German said, "Six of the 14 property have been sold by the Government and this has brought in about £1.9 million. So the taxpayer is out of pocket by over three and-a-half million pounds."

The Deputy First Minister further highlighted that the Welsh Government had yet to by further properties although the M4 relief project had been cancelled at a further cost to the taxpayer of approaching a further £1 million.

Mr. German said that the amounts involved were 'beyond expectations' and that the taxpayers would be rightly annoyed that the bill for the cancelled project was likely to top £20 million. "The news that the government spent over £6.5 million buying land and property on top of the previously announced £15.5 million will no doubt enrage Welsh taxpayers in the present 'must be careful with our money' climate.

"This outrageous waste of taxpayers' money is down to the indecision of the Plaid-Labour government. They were elected to make a decision back in 2007 and have spent over two years unable to make up their minds and the result is £20 million of taxpayers money lost."