MADAM,

We have been reading in your columns about safety matters at the ‘pinch point’ in Monnow Street and at the white toll house near Trothy Bridge, Troy. But surely a far more dangerous route is the Wonastow Road which although nothing more than a country road is being used as if it were a major one.

It is about time the county highways department did something about it, especially with the additional 1,500 vehicles expected to come from the new housing estate under construction at Wonastow Road. (This is a figure recently quoted by a senior council officer).

It could become a crazy situation. Not long ago there was an open ditch all along the road which was largely a single lane route, and despite heavy traffic and big farm tractors and trailers eating away at the verges it is still narrow in many places.

The problem is that more and more traffic is using the route as a quicker means of reaching the dual carriageway and elsewhere. Drivers are just not using the link road and the old A40 and this includes many residents from the new properties at Rockfield Road, heavy delivery vehicles from the existing industrial estate and the construction traffic from the site of the new housing development.

Many of these vehicles are travelling at high speeds and in excess of the legal limit, making the road extremely dangerous for all types of users. You only have the see the skid marks on the road to realise this. Big vehicles sometimes find themselves running out of road and having to turn somewhere to retrace their steps.

Another concern is that a large proportion of the vehicles are using the narrow old stone bridge at Jingle Street which takes them onto the rough single lane track and there is frequent reversing and manoeuvring for vehicles to be able to pass one another. The bridge, made for horses and carts, is having to support heavy lorries, some of which have to inch their way across, and the bridge is showing damage. A similar stone bridge near Tenbury Wells collapsed earlier this year and the Jingle Street bridge could well meet the same fate.

Local people are very concerned about the situation at Wonastow Road and Jingle Street and with such a massive invasion of vehicles expected from the housing development the county authority must get their act together.

Local residents are agreeing that the road should become access only. I wholeheartedly agree.

Ted Saunders

(Monmouth)