GWYNEDD campaigners are “cheesed off” with the Welsh Government after reiterating calls for a cancelled bypass proposal to go ahead.

Llanbedr community group POBL have been campaigning to reverse the Welsh Government’s decision, announced in November 2021, to scrap that village’s bypass proposal.

On Friday, 22 April, POBL member Jane Taylor said the village was gridlocked three times in just one day: “The community are totally cheesed off and disappointed with the Welsh Government.

“They want to spend £20 million on developing the air base to a spaceport. But no relief road. How are we supposed to deal with the deliveries, traffic and articulated lorries entering the spaceport?

“Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters, as we have heard from Robin Kent Smith, has repeatedly stated he is not going to change his decision.

“Llanbedr community are questioning his role as Climate Minister, when we have to live with pollution. He and his committee are not taking the welfare of Llanbedr and West Wales Coast into consideration.”

On 1 November, during the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters MS announced the Llanbedr bypass was cancelled.

He stated the bypass scheme “does not align well with new Welsh Government transport and climate policy, and advises that it is not taken forward”.

Following on from the news, Llanbedr Councillor Annwen Hughes set up a petition, in an attempt to “get this ridiculous decision reversed”. The petition currently has 2,643 signatures.

POBL said, hearing about the announcement, the community felt as though the “carpet was pulled out from underneath us”, and they are frustrated with the lack of communication from the Welsh Government.

Speaking to the Cambrian News in March, POBL member Lucy Powell said: “It’s our universal right to have road safety. Jean Todt declared it is a universal human right for everybody to have road safety.

“What has been decreed by Lee Walters and the Welsh Government, and their answer to us, is ‘no, this is not going to happen’.

“But that doesn’t stop the fact that our village is not safe and it’s not getting any safer. It’s getting worse, busier, and we as a community are fearful. Somebody is going to be seriously hurt or worse killed.

“That is how desperate it has become.”

POBL said their main concerns centre around the health and safety of the village. They claimed traffic can be backed up for an hour during the summer, causing congestion, particularly at pinch points in the village.

Lucy added: “I came on holiday here as a kid, so we eventually moved up here. I have bought three of my children up in this village.

“15 years ago, my sons were the same age as my daughter now. They would always be out. Now, I can’t let me daughter walk to the shop from my house at the same age. I don’t trust the pavement.”