LETTER: Dinas bypass scheme branded 'crackpot'

The four Vale of Glamorgan ward members for Dinas Powys were surprised and disappointed by recent press releases online and in the Barry and District newspaper by a group calling themselves the Barry to Cardiff Link Road Group. The scheme they are proposing, a new road from the Merrie Harrier junction to Hayes Road and Barry Docks, funded by developers, does not in any way represent a bypass for Dinas Powys and has already been roundly rejected as such by the Vale of Glamorgan Council, by Dinas Powys Community Council and by the four Dinas Powys ward Councillors. The ward Councillors and the Community Council have engaged at length with the residents of the village over a number of years and have learnt that there is a majority of residents who wish to see a bypass but not at any cost. Most residents we have spoken to want a bypass yes, but what they don’t want is for the village to be swamped in new development. We are equally sure that this view would be held by the majority of residents in Penarth, Sully and Barry. The amount of development that would be required to fund the non-bypass that this group is proposing is truly staggering (approx. 45,000 houses or equivalent according to a reliable source in the Vale of Glamorgan Council) and would lead to Dinas Powys, Sully, Penarth and Barry becoming part of a conurbation of a Greater Cardiff. The four Vale Councillors will fight this crackpot scheme tooth and nail in just the same way as we will continue to fight for a genuine bypass for the village funded by central Government and not contingent on grandiose schemes for (over) development.