CARMARTHEN East and Dinefwr AM Adam Price has demanded an urgent meeting with the Welsh Government’s economy secretary ahead of the National Assembly vote on its £15billion budget citing “ambiguous and contradicting statements by the Labour government over the Llandeilo bypass”.

Ahead of the Christmas season, Mr Price, who led the negotiations that achieved a £50million investment for a bypass around Llandeilo, expressed concern that the project could was facing a 10-month delay.

Responding to the AM’s concerns, a spokesperson for the Welsh Government said work on the scheme was “well underway”.

But in a move which has worried Mr Price, the Government’s updated National Transport Finance Plan states that the Government is to confirm whether a bypass “is still required or if alternative solutions can be implemented.”

Mr Price said: “I am frustrated by what is beginning to look like a catalogue of contradicting statements by the Labour government over the Llandeilo bypass.

“I achieved an unequivocal commitment to construct a bypass, and on no occasion since that agreement or in my meetings with the Economy Secretary has anything other than a bypass been discussed or suggested.

“The new reference to some sort of alternative appears to be a breach of a formal budget agreement.

“We need an urgent clarification from the Economy Secretary that the Welsh Government will honour the agreement. I hope the Economy Secretary is prepared to provide the clarification we need.”

MP Jonathan Edwards added: “Nothing but a cast-iron public commitment that the Llandeilo bypass will be constructed in 2019 will suffice now.”

“The problems of congestion, safety and pollution have not changed in Llandeilo since that budget agreement was reached. If anything those problems have increased. The case for a bypass has been long recognised and accepted.

“We cannot have a situation where any citizen of Wales, not least the people that Adam and I represent in Llandeilo and north Carmarthenshire, are promised investment only to see their national government cynically publish during the Christmas recess the option to backtrack on that promise.

“We need clarification from the Economy Secretary as a matter of urgency.”