The flyer created by the Caru Teifi group outlining the traffic management issues that will be caused by the construction of the four windfarms around and above Lampeter, raises the important issue that our narrow rural road network will be used for construction traffic transporting materials and turbine blades from Swansea M4, to Carmarthen A48 and then on to the A40 passing Llandeilo and leaving at Talley or Llanwrda. https://caruteifi.cymru/traffic-impact-leaflet.html
The impact of this will mean tree and hedge felling, road widening and convoys of heavy vehicles resulting in long term disruption affecting farms, homes and small businesses from the M4 right through to the Cambrian Mountains.
For the residents of Llanwrda, the prospect is particularly dismal. Currently, Galileo Empower, the company behind the Bryn Cadwgan windfarm, have plans to build a Blade Transfer Area just outside the village in the layby.
The layby will become a storage area for turbine blades and other material. The hedges will be removed and re-levelling of the entrance will need to be undertaken.
For a scaleable, clearer image visit the website: https://bryncadwganenergypark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Bryn-Cadwgan-Energy-Park-PAC-ES-Volume-4-Chapter-3-Figures.pdf
The A40 serves as a major route for residents and businesses in the area and holidaymakers in the summer. The anticipated rise in heavy vehicle traffic due to the transfer station and the transport to the other wind farms, must surely increase the potential for accidents involving larger vehicles and local traffic. This stretch is already prone to closure due to accidents and the effects of that can be considerable. There have been calls in the past to look at ways to improve safety.
The economic implications, cannot be overlooked, with potential loss of customers for local businesses implicit in the road disruption together with challenges for deliveries and logistics. Sustained and ongoing disruption could seriously damage small businesses the income of which is, in many instances, contingent on holiday makers who will be discouraged by the sort of traffic chaos that will result from these plans.
It is difficult to envisage what the actual effects will be, but if the plans are allowed to progress, everyone locally will feel them in one way or another, not just the problems for daily activities and commutes but increased noise and air pollution from construction and ongoing operations and, importantly, cutting down trees and hedges which will disrupt local ecosystems. The Halting and reversing the
loss of nature by 2030 report from the Senedd states that:
“Wales’ nature is disappearing at an alarming rate. The latest report on the state of nature in Wales (2023) details the devastating scale of nature loss across the country – Welsh wildlife has decreased on average by 20% since 1994 and one in six Welsh species are threatened with extinction. So, what is the Welsh Government doing to help save nature?“
By allowing the sort of devastation that the current projects for windfarms and pylon routes, it is difficult to see what the Welsh Government is doing to help save nature, it could be argued, that they are allowing wholesale destruction of some the most valuable and important landscapes and habitats.
As the Caru Teifi flyer points out, what is being proposed isn’t just about individual wind farms and pylon lines or the havoc that will be caused by the construction of the Blade Transfer station at Llanwrda, it’s about the future of our valleys, our roads and our communities and everyone should do what they can to voice their objections.