THIS COULD HAVE BEEN HORRIFIC SAYS SKATES AFTER FIRE INTUNNEL

MINISTER VISITS SCENE OF INFERNO AS MS SAYS AREA LACKED A PLAN TO DEAL WITH CHAOS

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor

TRANSPORT Secretary Ken Skates paid a visit to the Conwy Tunnel yesterday to see the work that had been done to get it reopened, after it was shut following a crane lorry fire on Thursday.

The tunnel fully reopened yesterday, after a contraflow was put in place, following Thursday's blaze, which saw people instructed to leave their vehicles and walk out, as acrid black smoke billowed from the scene.

Mr Skates, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport said: “This could have been a horrific incident,” but said the safety systems in place had done their job.

“The effort by the team has been quite phenomenal to get it open again in such a short space of time,” he said.

“We were under promising and the team have now over-delivered, so I’m really grateful to them.

Commenting on the safety of the tunnel Mr Skates said: “There are going to be some armchair analsysts who will say that things should be done slightly differently, or different measures should be implemented and incorporated into the tunnel.

“But a lot of the learning and measures date back to the aftermath of the Mont Blanc Tunnel disaster, when there was huge loss of life, after a terrible fire.

“Regulations were introduced through European directives and then they were adopted by the UK when we left. As a result of that, regular rehearsals of events and incidents such as this have to take place - standards that have to be meet.

“Just two months ago, an exercise was undertaken, by multiple agencies and it was precisely to address the sort of incident that took place on Thursday.