Councillors warn closing M4 junctions will end up ‘penalising’ city

Nicholas Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter

Proposals to close motorway junctions to ease congestion have drawn opposition from councillors, who warn the changes would “penalise” their city.

The Welsh Government is considering shutting M4 Junction 27 at High Cross in Newport, along with some slip roads at Junctions 25 and 26, serving Caerleon and Malpas.

It estimates the closures could be introduced in less than two years and reduce motorway congestion by around 3%.

Cllr Dimitri Batrouni, who leads Newport City Council, said he was “flabbergasted” by the proposal and warned any move “to restrict or close junctions for this city will not only inhibit our growth but cause traffic mayhem in key choke points”.

The Welsh Government has promised “action, not endless discussion” to fix the city’s M4 congestion and will launch a new 18-month study on various combinations of “roads-based solutions”, while also backing ongoing plans for public transport investment including new railway stations.

A lengthy report on the various options includes the possibilities of widening the Brynglas Tunnels and the A48 – but states the “fastest and cheapest to deliver” option would be to close the three junctions.

The report also anticipates this measure “would likely be unpopular with the local community and could result in Newport Council objecting to junction closures due to the increase in congestion in the city, as a result, without an appropriate package of local mitigation measures being agreed”.

Wales’ deputy transport minister, Mark Hooper, said this week the government would “work closely with Newport City Council, local communities and [Senedd] Members to develop these interventions so that the local impacts are properly considered alongside the benefits to the M4”.

“We also recognise that changes affecting the motorway can have consequences for local roads,” he added.

Cllr Batrouni said Newport, as Wales’ fastest-growing local authority area, needs “more infrastructure – not less” and said an estimated 3% improvement in M4 traffic levels was “not at all” worth closing the junctions.

“You’re just making Newport residents pay a price for literally a marginal gain of M4 congestion traffic loss – it’s not worth the price of what it’ll do to the residents,” he said.

The local authority’s leader said he would be “shocked if 98% or 99%” of residents were not against the proposed junction closures, and added his hopes there would be a “united front” among councillors.

Cllr Matthew Evans, who leads the council’s Conservative group in opposition, said the junction closures proposal would be “a sticking plaster for a gaping wound” and repeated his belief that only a relief road – scrapped in 2019 under a Welsh Labour government – would improve M4 traffic flow around Newport and boost the economy.

He said he backed plans from 2020 to improve the local rail network, but added Newport’s citizens were still waiting for “diggers in the ground”.

“Closing junctions does not take a single car off the road – it simply moves motorway traffic onto local streets that were never designed to carry it,” said Cllr Mark Howells, who leads the Lliswerry independent group.

He described an “overwhelming” opposition to the proposal among Lliswerry residents, adding the long-term solution for M4 traffic “is the one Newport was promised and then denied – a relief road”.

Any proposals to send more traffic along the A48 Southern Distributor Road (SDR) risked his ward becoming “Newport’s bypass”, and longstanding plans for new railway access to communities in the city’s east “should be delivered as quickly as possible”, he added.

Welsh Liberal Democrat councillor Carmel Townsend, from St Julians, said “any junction closure merely displaces the problem”, and Newport residents “would face more congestion, noise, and bad air quality”.

Cllr Townsend also alleged “the Welsh Labour government promised a billion pounds of investment to improve transport in Newport when they cancelled the M4 relief road in 2019, and we have seen none of it”.

Investment should be focused on public transport before any road decisions are made, added Green Party councillor Lauren James.

“The more people who have a genuine choice about how they travel, the better our roads will work for everyone… making journeys smoother for those who need or choose to drive,” she said.

“Moving the problem from one part of the city to another is not a solution. We recently had a crash on the SDR and the city was gridlocked for hours. Forcing people off the M4 will have the same effect.”

Cllr James said politicians had “spent decades talking about an M4 relief road without delivering one”, and “Newport needs improvements now, not more years of waiting”.

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