The Leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, Cllr John Thomas, has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates AM, formally requesting an explanation of why a bid for funding to take the study for a potential Dinas Powys bypass to the next stage was rejected.

Grants totalling more than £1m have been awarded to the council by Welsh Government to pursue various transport initiatives. These include a Penarth Headland link road with walking and cycling lanes, new bus stops for the A48, and road safety initiatives.

A bid for the £1m required to complete a study into options to improve the transport network in the village of Dinas Powys, however, was turned down.

Cllr Thomas said: “I am very disappointed that the application for funding to progress the transport study in Dinas Powys to stage three was turned down.

“It is, however, still early days for the project and having not received funding this time does not mean we will not be successful in the future.

“We submitted this application at the earliest opportunity so that we could take the study forward to the third stage as quickly as possible. As a result we are still only midway through stage two and are continuing to develop detailed plans for a possible bypass.

“This project is of great importance to the council and so I have written to Welsh Government to ascertain why the bid was turned down and what, if anything, we can do to make sure that a future bid is successful.”

The current absence of funding for stage three of the transport study does not affect work currently underway or the recent announcement that the scope of the current project has been widened to include additional options.