The headteacher of a Monmouth prep school has hit out at the current road chaos saying it is now “beyond a joke"

Neil Shaw, head of the Haberdashers’ Monmouth Prep School on the Hadnock Road said he has every sympathy “with the need for Welsh Water to upgrade the mains water pipes” but slams the decision to run the Active Travel roadworks on Cinderhill Street and Rockfield Road at the same time as “ludicrous”.

“The replacement of the water mains is critical work which clearly needs doing and I do understand the temp lights by the boys school and the need to make Monnow Street one-way. 

He goes on to say: “However, the temporary lights outside the Bridges for the "improvements" to the junction, the closure of the dual due to the landslide (including the narrowing to one lane shortly before the Agincourt roundabout) are utterly ludicrous to be allowed to happen all at the same time”.

He adds that from a personal perspective “it is virtually impossible for my wife and my two children to get to work and school (the congestion around the Shell Garage being particularly horrendous) and as an employer and Head of the local school to hear that colleagues and parents are now 45-60 minutes late arriving for school and work is beyond a joke.

“It must be decimating revenues on the High Street and debilitating the lives of ordinary people around Monmouth? Basically during school pick up and drop off times.”

The decision to run the Active Travel work on Cinderhill Street was taken by MCC officer and colleagues who said in a letter to the president of the Monmouth Chamber of Commerce, Sherren McCabe-Finlaysson, that he had spoken with colleagues and was “happy that concurrent roadworks would not have any great impact”. 

The cause of a lot of the misery has been the unexpected landslip on the A40 over a month ago has meant a lane merge of traffic on the northbound route has been put in place between Dixton roundabout and the Wye Bridge traffic lights.

Calls to the Secretary of State for Transport, Mark Harper, MP for Forest of Dean, to press National Highways to move the one-lane restriction have so far proved fruitless and to add to the misery, the landslip has been reclassified as a rockfall and will mean remedial work will take even longer.