TOWN TORN APART BY ROAD PROBLEM
Many say a bypass around Llandeilo simply has to happen, but not everyone agrees. Part of the town has been designated an air quality management area for almost a decade. RICHARD YOULE reports
BIRDS are chattering in the grounds of St Teilo’s Church in Llandeilo on a bracing winter day, but their singsong is about to be drowned out again.
Another HGV has crossed the River Towy and is going up the hill on Bridge Street towards the centre of the town.
That’s because Bridge Street, which becomes the town’s narrow thoroughfare Rhosmaen Street, is also the A483 trunk road between Swansea and Manchester.
For nine years part of the picturesque Carmarthenshire town, with its fine art and fashion shops, has been designated an air quality management area due to breaches of nitrogen dioxide levels.
Plans for a bypass have been in the offing for decades, but still the HGVS rattle through.
Work on a £50m bypass was expected to start by the end of 2019, but it was delayed by the Welsh Government until 2025 at the earliest.
There are currently four options – three featuring a bypass which would skirt the east of Llandeilo, running along the railway below and then joining up with the A40 roundabout just north of the town, and one incorporating traffic lights and the removal of parking in Rhosmaen Street but no relief road. The bypass options also avoid the village of Ffairfach to the south.
Ask about the project in town and opinions differ.
All sides recognise the HGV issue, but don’t concur on how to solve it.
Jon and Marie Pearson, who were walking their
dog, oppose a bypass.
“We think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr Pearson.
“It would traverse the fields and would have to be elevated above the flood plain. One-in-100year floods are now happening every 10 years.
“The carbon footprint would be awful – and does
Wales need to spend £50m-£70m on it?”
Mr Pearson said he felt alternatives to a bypass, such as limiting the times HGVS could come through the town, had not been trialled properly.
His wife said: “The bypass would destroy the valley.”
Wendy Powell-jones, of Church Street, which overlooks the Towy Valley, also felt the bypass was not the right option.
“It’s all the money, and all the disruption, and hundreds of houses would be affected,” she said. “When it rains heavily it’s a lake down there and
mist sets in down in the valley.”
She accepted there was pollution in the town centre, but believed other options than a new relief road could be found.
“There are people who can do this,” she said.
A few doors down and Maggie Crimmins is
annoyed that the two most popular options of a previous public consultation – both avoiding a bypass – did not make it onto the current shortlist.
“Why offer them in the first place?” she said.
Ms Crimmins believes the bypass is a “very bad idea”.
She said: “Once you’ve ruined that valley there’s no repairing it. It’s also a huge amount of money and it’s bound to be more than they say it would be.”
She added: “By 2030 Boris Johnson is talking about new electric vehicles – we need to stop using 20th Century solutions in the 21st Century. I don’t feel that building a relief road is the right response.”
In the town centre Tatyana Stuart-grumbar backed the idea of a bypass. “I think it’s a good idea,” said the Oriel Mimosa Fine Art employee. “With less traffic I think it would draw a lot more people to the town. There would be less sense of stress.”
Caroline Jenkins, of gift and clothing shop Igam Ogam, agreed.
“We desperately need the bypass,” she said.
“Llandeilo is a small town and you can’t keep on with these huge lorries and the volume of traffic.
“Llandeilo was not meant for this.”
Neil Jones, owner of Jones International Travel Ltd, of Llandeilo, said he believed a bypass was “the only common-sense alternative”.
He said: “I’m sure the town would find a way to flourish if that was to happen.”
Mr Jones said the option of removing parking from Rhosmaen Street could lead to lorries and other vehicles posing an issue by travelling too fast.
Eifion Davies was based in an office before the cor
onavirus lockdown, but is now working from home in the town.
He has asthma and said his chest was feeling better since the switch.
“I used to be standing outside the office at 8.20am waiting to go in during rush-hour traffic with all the lorries and buses,” he said.
Mr Davies said he didn’t think the traffic light option would work in Rhosmaen Street. He said temporary lights in the street in the summer had caused “carnage”.
The 55-year-old, who is also a town councillor, said he understood the concerns of objectors.
“In the end we have got to get the balance of the health and safety of peo
ple in the town,” he said.
The town council backs one of the cheaper bypass options.
Town mayor Owen James said: “As it stands, it’s simply dangerous for people to come into Llandeilo. I know of people who don’t want to come into Llandeilo for that reason. Stand on the main road – you know exactly why we need a bypass.”
County councillor Edward Thomas said he wanted the “Rolls-royce” bypass option, estimated at £70m, which takes a wider swerve of Ffairfach than the other proposals.
“My first priority has always been the pollution,” he said.
“Nitrogen dioxide levels at one point in Llandeilo were the highest in Wales. The trunk road runs past two primary schools, which is not good. My other concern is pedestrian safety.”
He led a county council motion on the delayed bypass in September.
Mr Thomas said Rhosmaen Street would become one-way if a bypass was built, allowing pavements to be widened.
He rejected the suggestion that businesses could lose out if passing trade was redirected.
“Llandeilo is such a tourist attraction – a town with independent shops and nice eateries,” he said.
“I think the days of passing trade have passed.”
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We remain committed to delivering the [bypass] scheme as part of wider efforts to improve transport in the area. We’re working closely with stakeholders, including Carmarthenshire council, to take this work forward.”
Carmar thenshire’s executive board member for environment, Councillor Hazel Evans said: “We support the need for the bypass complemented by better facilities for pedestrians and cyclists once the bypass is built.”