Pembrokeshire County Council's cabinet looks set to formally call for the dualling of the A40 at a public local inquiry which starts next month. The inquiry, beginning on July 10, has been called into the draft orders for the proposed £25m improvements between Penblewin and Slebech Park. But those orders - single lanes each way with a third lane for overtaking in certain areas - fall well short of the dualling the council has been campaiging for. The report to go before Monday's meeting states: "Should the current level of traffic growth be sustained, the traffic flow at Canaston Bridge will be above the limit for a wide single two-lane carriageway of 23,000 vehicles per day by 2020, thereby requiring futher intervention. Initiating a highway scheme of this nature with only about a 10-year horizon of capacity is not a sustainable way forward." The recommendation, therefore, is that the council objects to the making of these orders at the inquiry and renews its calls for the Welsh Assembly Government to bring forward urgently, proposals for dualling this and other sections of the A40 between St. Clears and Haverfordwest, avoiding the need for further intervention in the near future with the associated additional cost, both financial and economic in terms of disruption.
