A man hospitalised on Saturday night after being hit by a car on the A40 in Monmouth, is now in a stable condition in hospital.

Local man Martyn Hancocks was in a collision with a car as he attempted to cross the A40 from the Wye Bridge going into Monmouth town centre at approximately 6.45pm Saturday night (15th December).

The 49-year-old was taken to Nevill Hall Hospital and later transferred to the University of Wales Hospital Cardiff where at the time of going to print, he was in a critical but stable condition.

His father David Hancocks said: "He suffered a number of injuries, but the main problem was the knock he took to his head.

"He had surgery in Cardiff where they had to take a piece of his skull away to relieve the pressure on his brain.

"He is in an induced coma and will stay in it for a few days. He is responding well and the doctors will look to wake him up gradually soon. Then they will run tests.

"He will recover. He may not be the same person again but he will recover, and that is the main thing."

A number of witnesses were spoken to at the time including the driver of the car involved in the collision, but police would like anyone else who witnessed the collision, including motorists travelling southbound, to contact them on 101.

It is not the first time that a pedestrian has been hit while attempting to cross the busy dual carriageway.

In 2006, a 21 year old girl was in collision with a car when she was walking to her Kymin home following a Bank Holiday weekend night out.

Megumi Wilson was crossing the northbound dual carriageway at 11.20pm on Sunday 20th May when she was hit by a car driven by a local man.

She was taken to Nevill Hall hospital in Abergavenny and treated for injuries including a severed spine and a fractured pelvis, which have left her paralysed from the neck down and is now confined to a wheelchair.

Campaigners called for a reduction in the speed limit and presented a petition to the Assembly's minister for economic development and transport, Andrew Davies, insisting he visit the A40 crash site and see for himself the danger of high speed traffic through.

The "Drop it to 40!" campaign was originally launched by then town councillor Eileen Goodrich following the death of a 78-year-old woman. Marian Tyson and her pet dog were killed crossing the road closer to Dixton roundabout.

In 2006, when the campaign was resurrected, the speed limit was still 60mph, but the advice at the time was that dropping the limit would have made no difference in the case of Megumi Wilson which was deemd not to have been caused by speeding traffic.

The condition of the underpass was brought into question when councillors admitted it was "not the nicest of places". This fact was emphasised less than three weeks after Megumi's accident when a Monmouth girl was accosted on her way to school by a man in his 30s.

Attempts were made to make the underpass more acceptable, and earlier this year it was painted with funding provided by the Tidy Towns initiative and with paint supplied by Haberdashers Monmouth Schools.