Last Friday, 3 May, the Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport, Ken Skates, was given a tour of the site in South-West Wales where the Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) is under construction.
The Cabinet Secretary also received an update from Chief Executive Simon Jones on progress with the Centre, which is being constructed on a 700-hectare site at the former Nant Helen opencast mine near Onllwyn.
Cabinet Secretary Ken Skates emphasised how the development would play an important role in supporting economic growth in the region in response to the economic effects of job losses at the nearby Port Talbot steelworks.
Designed to be a centre for rail and mobility research, development, as well as testing of next generation rolling stock, infrastructure, and net zero transport technologies, the Centre recently signed an agreement with Spanish train manufacturer CAF to use the site, following similar agreements with Hitachi Rail, Thales, and Transport for Wales.
Over 180 companies have also signed an open letter committing to using the Centre when it is fully operational.
The Centre is currently in discussions with potential private investors to secure capital funding for the development.
The idea to establish such a centre was originally put forward within the Welsh Government in 2017, when Ken Skates was Transport Minister. The Centre hopes to secure private funding for the development and is currently in discussions about this with potential private investors.
The construction phase has already created around 150 jobs, and another 250 jobs will be created when the Centre is fully operational.
Furthermore, there are plans for a major technology park on the site, which has the potential to create 750 more jobs in the next ten years.
It was fantastic to return to the Global Centre of Rail Excellence and see the progress that has been made. What is very clear is that the Global Centre of Rail Excellence is one of the key ways in which we can support the regional economy of South West Wales as the impact of Tata job losses are felt in the coming years.
The Global Centre of Rail Excellence is no longer just a drawing on a map, it's a shovel ready infrastructure development with a growing customer base that can get going with construction in the next few months if the vital private investment it needs can be secured.
Critically, GCRE will be magnet facility for Wales, helping to attract businesses, R&D funding and inward investment as part of innovation-led growth in this important part of the South Wales coalfield as it grapples with the economic shock to come.
It was great to see the images of the new facility and to see first-hand the potential for transport to play such an important role in creating new economic growth.
Ken Skates, Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport
“Global centre of Rail Excellence” – what a stupid name. National centre, surely?
What’s excellent about the way seventy years of political interference in the railways culminated in thirty odd years of privatisation fiasco’s (and why the minister from north Wales when it’s being built in south Wales?).
It would be great for south Wales no doubt about that, especially after the political mismanagement of recent years, but, as usual, it’s “shovel ready” jam tomorrow.
In view of WAGs /TfW’s “performance” ( overspending on vanity loco hauled trains, paying too much for not needed conductors on future Valley lines tram trains,cutting back Central Wales line to virtually nothing, not providing extra trains on Cambrian lines), is this a good title for this facility?