12/04/2014 BBC Wales Today

Mike Wooldridge, BBC News, Lahore. There's more throughout the evening

on the Good evening. The leader of the

Welsh Conservatives has given his strongest indication yet that he's

willing to work with the other parties in the Assembly. He told his

party's annual conference in Llangollen that Wales needs a

coalition of ideas to tackle the problems its facing. Andrew RT

Davies has been speed dating. This session at the conference was

designed to come up with new policies. But is he ready to deal

with another party in the Assembly in order to challenge Labour? It

appears he may well be after he spoke of building a coalition of

ideas in his maiden speech. -- main speech. Later, he was asked what

that meant. It means reaching out to anyone who has the best interests of

the people of Wales at heart and wants to get us off the bottom of

the league table, whether it be health, education or the economy.

Rather than this overlording mentality that Labour have which is

to extinguish any sort of freethinking or alternative. It

didn't sound much like Andrew RT Davies was trying to reach out

during his speech today. He accused the Liberal Democrats of not knowing

what they stand for and accused Plaid of wanting to break up the UK.

But we are told reaching out is what he was trying to do. Behind it all,

of course, is the realisation that if the opposition parties are going

to threaten Labour at the Assembly they need to work together.

Earlier, the Welsh Secretary David Jones renewed the main theme of the

conference by attacking the record of the Welsh government. This time,

on education. The plain and simple truth is that Labour have let down

an entire generation of Welsh young people with little sign of doing

anything to make things better. There was nothing cuddly about the

Conservatives here. This was a conference in which the gloves came

off and battle lines were drawn. There's growing concern that a trial

closure of a junction on the M4 near Port Talbot could harm the local

economy. The Welsh Government plans to close junction 41 in the summer

saying it'll ease congestion. Over 300 people attended a public meeting

last night to voice their concerns. This stretch of motorway can be

bumper-to-bumper and plans to close Junction 41 temporarily are aimed at

easing congestion. But it's not easing the fears of local

businesses. The Aberafan shopping centre is located just off the

junction. Keith Hopkins runs this hairdressers in the centre. He

believes even a short term closure will do long term damage to the

economy. Closing junction 41 closes my business. I'm fully aware of

this. I've been here a long time, nearly 40 years. I know exactly what

it takes to make this business run. The reason we are here in the

beginning is because of ease of access. And over 300 people attended

a public meeting in a church last night so they could have their say

on the plans. The Welsh Government claims it'd bring an economic boost

of over ?1 million a year due to fewer accidents and delays. At rush

hour, this stretch of road can become heavily congested. The Welsh

government say that by closing junction 41, the capacity of the M4

westbound would increase by 11%. It's a major problem every morning.

That and the Brynglas tunnels are the two big problems we face on the

M4 motorway. What we're trying to do is take the old piece of road that

was built many years ago and hook it up to this new distributor road

which has been built and try to entice the traffic off. The trial

closure is proposed to get underway in August and last for six months.

Football and Cardiff City have given themselves some hope of avoiding

relegation from the Premier League. Juan Cala's goal saw the Bluebirds

win 1-0 at Southampton. Elsewhere there were wins for Newport County

and Wrexham. And The New Saints have won the Welsh Premier after they

drew today. A full check on the weather now,

here's Owain Wyn Evans. It has been a cloudy day across

Wales but blue skies tomorrow, hopefully. Clear skies tonight so it

will be chilly. Clouds will break overnight. Temperatures falling

close to freezing. Tomorrow morning, sunny spells across the

South and mid Wales. The cloud in the North will clear at times

tomorrow. Light to moderate winds. This area of high pressure keeps

things are settled for the next few days. Plenty of blue skies and sunny

spells. That's Wales Today. We're back

tomorrow at 6.50. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.

your work like this. -- subbing simple. When I

We start with a look at the latest satellite sequence, because it shows

what has been going on over the last few hours. This band of cloud has

been slipping south across England and Wales. A bit of patchy rain