SWNASEA City councillor Ioan Richard is objecting to the four-week closure of a mountain road between Ammanford and Morriston, claiming that such a move is unnecessary.

Rhydypandy Road is frequently used by Ammanford commuters in the morning and again in the evening.

But residents of Mawr Ward have learnt it will be closed for four weeks from Monday, February 3, to allow the laying of electricity cables for a solar park.

Saying he was objecting "on behalf of many irate constituents", Cllr Richard said: "Two large farms in Mawr currently have planning permission for such ventures and another two farms are believed to be planning such ventures – these are taking farms out of food production.

"The construction traffic will be immense, involving many, many HGVs and vans travelling back and forth and, no doubt, “shipped in” construction workers.

"This proposal means total closure of Rhydypandy Road for at least four weeks just to lay cables."

And Cllr Richard maintains there is no need for such a closure.

"A good stretch of water mains renewal was recently laid along this very same stretch of road with no closure – only traffic lights controlling “one way” sections," he told the Guardian.

"My personal objection is that this is not of any national strategic interest and recent work here laying water pipes was done with traffic tights controlling single flow for a few weeks."

"In a rural area like Mawr any diversions can be many, many miles unlike urban side streets where it can only be a few metres to the next street."

Swansea City Council said last month they would be looking at ways to minimise the disruption for traffic.