THE impact the planned M4 relief road will have on a Monmouthshire village has not been properly considered, it has been claimed.

Last week the Argus reported a group of residents of Rogiet - which is near the motorway’s junction with the M48 - including former deputy leader of Monmouthshire County Council Mike Smith, had formulated ideas for an alternative M4 route dubbed the ‘green route’.

The proposal, one of 14 schemes due to be considered at a public inquiry set for the end of this month, would see the M4 kept on its current route past junction 23 and Magor Services, before turning south at Wilcrick and turning west after the Llanwern steelworks.

Now Mr Smith has written to Matthew Coward of the Welsh Government’s historic environment service Cadw expressing concerns that documents presented as part of the forthcoming inquiry did not contain any consideration of the Llanfihangel Rogiet Conservation Area, which contains 10 listed buildings.

In his letter Mr Smith, of Windmill Lane, said: “You will appreciate that it is not just the listed buildings that are important but their setting, which is, in my view, just as important if not more so in circumstances such as this. The buildings on their own are attractive and important but it is the collective setting that makes them unique.

“It is likely that their surroundings and the landscape in which they sit has not changed in centuries and now we have a proposal to plonk a motorway junction right in their midst. It will destroy the cultural and historic setting of those buildings and that unique hamlet.”

Mr Smith added he was also concerned about a requirement included in the plans to demolish the Grade II listed Magor Vicarage, saying the so-called green route would mean this was no longer necessary.

“There appears to be no one and no body prepared to protect this unique conservation area and I fear that if the proposed motorway junction goes ahead it will be lost forever and that setting of a unique farming community hamlet will be destroyed for the sake of a motorway interchange that can be accommodated elsewhere,” he said.

Cadw declined to comment as the inquiry pre-period is currently in process.