THE Towy Valley should be declared as an area of outstanding natural beauty according to residents.

“The Towy Valley is a beautiful, unique natural landscape like no other,” says Natalie Singh, who has started a petition to the Senedd to get the area designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty.

“Myself and a friend (Veronika Hurbis) have had the idea to get the Towy Valley designated as an AONB. There are a few local people involved who have held meetings, but we feel making this petition will really increase awareness of this venture as there’s already a lot of focus on the anti-pylon campaigns, so these two things should work together.”

Natural Resources Wales has said that the valley has a ‘national landscape character’ with unique features that makes the valley ‘both scenically and ecologically outstanding.’

South Wales Guardian: The Towy Valley is almost 100km of unique features that are beloved by locals and visitors.The Towy Valley is almost 100km of unique features that are beloved by locals and visitors. (Image: Veronika Hurbis)

Cadw states that the 90km long valley from the source of the Towy River in the south of the Cambrian Mountains and travels through to the estuary mouth in Carmarthen Bay has principal significance as a setting for a ‘unique group of planned parks and gardens, and its historic, artistic associations with the Picturesque.’

The valley was described in a poem called Grongar Hill by John Dyer (published in 1726): ‘Now I gain the mountain’s brow,

What a landskip lies below!

No clouds, no vapours intervene,

But the gay, the open scene,

Does the face of nature show,

In all the hues of heaven’s bow!

And, swelling to embrace the light,

Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,

Proudly tow’ring in the skies!

Rushing from the woods, the spires,

Seem from hence ascending fires!

Half his beams Apollo sheds

On the yellow mountain-heads!

Gilds the fleeces of the flocks:

And glitters on the broken rocks!’

South Wales Guardian: The valley has some stunning views.The valley has some stunning views. (Image: Veronika Hurbis)

Cadw acknowledges the widespread sense that the Towy Valley is a cherished landscape and the fact the area still contains many historic castles, mansions and houses, with new discoveries still being made. NRW also acknowledges the valley’s use as a transport corridor for centuries as well as the use as a significant agricultural area and its historic significance as described by Cadw.

Ms Singh says that the ‘imminent threat’ of the pylons and wind turbines - in relation to the Bute Energy plans to have pylons along the valley to connect the Nant Mithril Energy Park with the National Grid in Carmarthen – means that the area should be quickly designated as an AONB to ‘safeguard its integrity and to protect and preserve its cultural and historical, as well as ecological, significance’ and that doing so would bring it in line with the November 2023 decision to designate all AONBs in the UK as ‘national landscapes.’

The petition can be viewed and signed at https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/246039.