Holm View Leisure Centre in Barry is set to open as a vaccination centre at the beginning of February.

Vale of Glamorgan MS Jane Hutt reported that Cardiff and Vale UHB CEO Len Richards confirmed there is a plan to open Holm View as a mass vaccination centre at the start of February.

Previously the health board said that the Barry leisure centre would be used as a vaccination centre "when needed".

"In terms of Holm View we have a plan to introduce that as a Mass Vaccination Centre at the beginning of February and that Centre will play a part in vaccinating the public," Mr Richards told Ms Hutt.

"I am very pleased to say that all of the GP Practices across Cardiff & Vale have agreed to be part of the Mass Vaccination roll-out.

"We had three Practices go live last week, 16 practices went live yesterday and the remaining 41 practices will go live on Thursday, and so by the end of this week all the GP Practices across C&V will be participating - something we are incredibly proud of.

"The GP Practices have the remit in the first instance of vaccinating the Over 80's population, and then to move onto the Over 70's with a view of completing the vaccination of these high risk groups by the middle of February.

"Then the task will be the Over 65's age group and so on.

"Our Mass Vaccination Centre at Splott is currently in place and vaccinating the other high risk groups of Care Home Residents through the Mobile Vaccination Team (they have done three homes last week and are scheduled to increase that to 25 this week) - the Mobile Team go out to the Care Home to do residents and they also do staff.

"The Centre is then focused on Staff from Health, Social Care, and various Healthcare related staff groups. Our intention is to have those completed by the end of January."

In a joint statement Andrew RT Davies (MS – Shadow Minister for Health in the Senedd), Matt Smith, the Welsh Conservative Senedd Candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan and Cllr Leighton Rowlands Welsh Conservative Senedd Candidate for Cardiff South & Penarth said:

"The lack of urgency from the Welsh Labour Government is very concerning, since the race against the virus is most definitely a sprint.

"While we welcome the clarification, we need a mass vaccination centre up and running as soon as possible."