COUNCIL chiefs failed to do their homework and plan for a major sewage works when designing the Ammanford relief road, an anti bypass campaigner said this week.

Phil Broadhurst said officials were so concerned with building the road to accommodate the Tesco store that they failed to plan for the water works.

"They failed do their homework and carry out the neccesary planning as a county council should," said Mr Broadhurst, of High Street, Ammanford.

Mr Broadhurst and D J Evans, of Wernolau Road, who has written to the paper expressing concern about the project, are demanding to know who will foot the bill for the "unforeseen problems."

In a letter to the Guardian, Mr Evans says: "The delay there is due to the presence of 21st century sewage works, which presumably were recorded.

"It is council tax-payers who will ultimately pick-up the bill for these expensive amendments."

The Guardian understands that the cost of the project will rise as a result of the problems.

But this claim has been denied by Carmarthenshire Council.

The authority has also confirmed the work is still on schedule.

Engineering design manager Brian Jenkins conceded the new road layout has been affected by a major system of control overflows to the local sewer at the eastern end of the scheme.

"Discussions have been held with Welsh Water to agree necessary protection measures to this system," he said.

"Work on the scheme has now been delayed, although some operations have had to be re-programmed and carried out in a different sequence to that originally intended.

"The western end of the scheme is significantly complete and work will now switch to the eastern end later this month."