Programme Status Breakdown
Delay Distribution (Weeks)
Announced vs. Current Cost — All Schemes (£m)
Cost Escalation Forecast to 2032 — Active Schemes
A465 — 23 Years, £1.5bn Over Budget
The Heads of the Valleys dualling began in 2002 and completed May 2025 — 23 years later. The total programme cost reached approximately £2bn against an original estimate of £500m. Sections 5 & 6 alone carry a 30-year MIM payment commitment of £1.4bn. Audit Wales confirmed Section 2 came in 46% over its 2014 construction start estimate.
Velindre Cancer Centre — Active Construction, Spring 2027
The new Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff is actively under construction (Jun 2026): the tower crane was dismantled following completion of the structural frame, and extended working hours are approved through July 2026 to maintain programme. Opening remains spring 2027. While 25-year lifecycle costs (Audit Wales, Feb 2026) have risen to £1.65bn — nearly three times the 2021 Outline Business Case — the contracted construction cost of £321m is on programme. Status upgraded to Minor Delay.
NHS Wales Backlog Hits £917m
High and significant risk maintenance backlog across 210 NHS Wales buildings reached £917m in 2024-25 — a 71% increase in four years. Over £616m relates to critical issues at 12 of Wales' 13 main hospitals. Ysbyty Gwynedd (£110.5m) and University Hospital of Wales (£106.8m) top the list. Welsh Labour's election manifesto proposed a £4bn "Hospitals of the Future" fund.
M4 Relief Road — £135.7m Written Off
The proposed M4 Newport bypass was cancelled in June 2019 after 28 years of planning. A total of £135.7m in public money was written off by 2021, including £44m on a public inquiry. By 2026, M4 congestion at Newport remained unresolved and the scheme re-emerged as a Senedd election issue — meaning even the sunk costs failed to deliver a lasting policy resolution.
South Wales Metro — £566m Over, 3 Years Late
The Core Valley Lines electrification completed in March 2026, three years behind the original 2023 target. Cost rose from £734m (2016) to approximately £1.3bn — a 77% increase — with TfW CEO James Price telling the Senedd that a further £150m had been added in early 2026. The full benefit timetable will not be operational until 2026 signal works at Cardiff Queen Street complete.
UK Context — England’s Local Roads Cull
In England, the UK Government is cutting funding for local road schemes to keep spending under control. Its review of the Major Road Network and Large Local Majors programme, announced in July 2025, tests whether schemes are “still needed, deliverable and affordable” and offer the “best overall value for money for taxpayers”; only 16 of the 41 schemes reviewed were kept (DfT Annual Report 2025–26). By October 2026, 24 English schemes had been reported as dropped, including the £930m M5 J9/A46 Ashchurch upgrade, £303m Melksham bypass, £197m Chesterfield Staveley route and £185.3m Kendal Northern Access Route. Schemes are being culled unless a strong business case and funding can be shown (Construction Enquirer, 14 Oct 2026; list compiled by Transport Action Network). This review covers England’s local roads only; roads in Wales are devolved and funded separately by the Welsh Government.
Grange University Hospital — A Rare Bright Spot
The £350m Grange University Hospital near Cwmbran opened November 2020 — four months ahead of schedule and on budget. It is currently the only NHS Wales major facility with no significant maintenance backlog. The National Audit Office cites it as a model for the NHS New Hospital Programme in England. Its success makes the wider NHS Wales capital performance more striking by contrast.
| Scheme | Status | Announced | Current Est. | Variance | Delay | ETI | Stranded | Detail |
|---|
Methodology & Sources
CPD Index (0–100): CPD-C (Cost Performance) measures the proportion of schemes delivered at or near announced cost, with a severity penalty for overruns greater than 25%. CPD-D (Delivery Performance) measures the proportion of schemes free from significant delay, with a minor penalty for smaller slippages. The combined CPD score applies a 60/40 weighting — 60% CPD-D (Delivery) and 40% CPD-C (Cost), reflecting the judgement that delivery failure imposes compounding societal and economic costs beyond the overrun figure alone. A score of 100 indicates a perfect delivery record; 0 indicates complete systemic failure.
Wales CPD scores: CPD-C = 45/100 (Poor 🟠): 18 of 40 schemes over budget; 7 with severe overruns (>25%) applying a 7-point penalty on the base 50 raw score. CPD-D = 69/100 (Concern 🟡): 6 schemes with significant delays (A465, S. Wales Metro, Velindre, Rolling Stock, NHS Backlog, Afan Valley) with a minor penalty of 1 point for 2 minor delay schemes. CPD Combined = 56/100 (Poor 🟠).
Clock: The live clock is computed from the scheme table on this page rather than from a stored total. It starts from the accumulated cost overrun on every scheme still live — any status other than Completed, Cancelled or Paused, with announced cost treated as zero where no published baseline exists — and then accrues construction inflation of 3.8% per annum (blended BCIS) on the live estimated portfolio from base epoch 30 April 2026. Completed, paused and cancelled schemes are excluded from the accrual. Both inputs are reproducible from the scheme table below, and the reconciliation panel shows the totals they derive from. Re-based 22 September 2026: the clock previously ran from a hand-selected subset of schemes that no longer reconciled with the published portfolio totals on this page.
Cost data: Announced costs are taken from original Welsh Government press releases, Senedd written statements, and Audit Wales reports. Current estimated costs are drawn from Audit Wales publications, Transport for Wales Senedd committee evidence, BBC Wales, WalesOnline, and gov.wales written statements.
Delay data: Weeks of delay calculated from original target completion date versus revised target or today's date where no revised target exists. Where no completion date was ever formally set, delay is classified as TBC.
Currency & inflation: All costs in £ GBP. Cost projections use BCIS blended rates: civil engineering 4.4% p.a., buildings 3.2% p.a.
Primary sources: Audit Wales (audit.wales) · Welsh Government (gov.wales) · Transport for Wales (tfw.wales) · BBC Wales · WalesOnline · Senedd committee reports
ETI — recognised by infrastructure funders and development economists: The ETI framework mirrors the approach used by infrastructure funders, bond markets, and recognised development economists when assessing the productive value of public capital expenditure. Its components draw on HM Treasury Green Book benefit-cost ratio methodology, deprivation weighting consistent with Levelling Up Fund criteria, and network effect analysis aligned with WebTAG multi-modal appraisal guidance — the same analytical frameworks referenced by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, development finance institutions, and institutional investors when evaluating public infrastructure programmes.
Disclaimer: This tracker is an independent professional accountability tool prepared by QUINTIN QS. It does not replicate, replace, or compete with any official government appraisal process. ETI scores and Stranded Value figures are derived from publicly available benchmark data and established appraisal frameworks — they are not the output of scheme-specific transport models such as TUBA or WebTAG-compliant multi-modal assessments. BCR inputs are drawn from published or analogous benchmarks, not bespoke modelling. Deprivation weighting is adapted from Levelling Up Fund criteria and is indicative in jurisdictions that use different deprivation indices. Delivery certainty scores reflect professional judgement applied consistently across all schemes. The methodology is fully disclosed, reproducible, and grounded in HM Treasury Green Book principles as updated in 2026 — but it carries the status of an independent analytical indicator, not a statutory appraisal. All figures are drawn from publicly available sources and are correct as of the date shown. If any government department holds more accurate data for a specific scheme, QUINTIN QS will update immediately upon notification. 🍓 If you believe any figure or fact shown here is incorrect, please write to mail@kevinbarryqs.com with the relevant scheme name, the correct figure, and a source reference — we will review and correct immediately if the evidence supports it. We are, after all, still human.
CPD Index — cost cap: The cost overrun % contribution to CPD-C is capped at 50 points — schemes with overruns above 100% score the maximum on this component. This prevents extreme outliers (e.g. schemes with 200%+ overruns) from distorting the index beyond its intended range.
CPD — about this acronym: CPD stands for Continued Prolonged Delays — a deliberate reference to Northern Ireland's Central Procurement Directorate, rebranded as Construction, Procurement, Delivery — the NI Executive body whose mandate is to ensure public infrastructure is built on time and on budget. The name is intentional.