A COUNCILLOR has called for a new road to relieve congestion on Chepstow’s roads after major roads were grid-locked last Friday.

Councillor Peter Farley, who sits on Monmouthshire council and Chepstow town council, said a jam that stopped Hardwick Hill and Mount Pleasant on Friday afternoon, and caused tailbacks throughout the town centre, showed the importance of mooted plans for an outer bypass to take traffic away from the centre of the town.

A lorry broke down on Mount Pleasant and caused tailbacks throughout the town centre on Friday afternoon.

And Cllr Farley said the town is in a “unique” position because of the two councils are involved with reducing traffic difficulties.

But he said abolishing bridge tolls on the Severn Bridge would stop drivers trying to use the town as a shortcut.

He said of the town's traffic problems: “It is a long standing issue that the county council and the town council are trying to work on with Welsh Government and others.

“The difficulty we face is that we are on the border so concerted effort has to be made by two county councils (Monmotuhshire and Glloucestershire) and two government departments."

He said in 2012 that an outer bypass should be built should the Mabey Bridge site be passed as part of Monmouthshire council’s Local Development Plan (LDP). Plans to develop it were passed at the LDP in February.

Chepstow Town Council’s clerk Sandra Bushell said it would be looking to meet traffic authorities soon after discussing problems and possible solutions with the Welsh Government.

And the landlord of the Coach and Horses Ian Meyrick said the traffic had been so bad motorists chose to walk to his the pub on Welsh Street rather than wait for the traffic to clear.

He said: “I got a bit of trade from it because people were blocked down by Tesco who went shopping and they were so locked in they came to the public to have something to eat or something to eat or drink. I didn’t make a fortune out of it but I did make a couple of quid.”

Mike Bruton, who works at WK Vehicle Rental on Mount Pleasant, said: “(The road is jammed) all the time. Whenever there is an accident on the junction to Bulwark it is chaos. It happens quite frequently because there is only one road out of Chepstow.”