HUNDREDS of people joined forces in Cardiff last week to take a stand against the M4 Relief Road.

The aim was to show political leaders in Wales the momentum of the opposition that is building up against the road, which runs from Magor.

Assembly Members have recently been promised a vote on the M4 Relief Road/ Black Route in the Senedd.

The crowd congregated with placards on the Senedd steps to hear from speakers from environmental organisations, political parties and local campaigners.

Representatives from five organisations which organised the #NoNewm4 rally took to the stage, including Ian Rappel, Chief Executive of Gwent Wildlife Trust, and Catherine Linstrum from Campaign Against the Levels Motorway (CALM).

Ian Rappel emphasised that the protected habitats for wildlife and people’s access to the Gwent Levels must not be sacrificed in favour of a new motorway:

“The planned new M4 motorway will cost the earth in every sense for both people and wildlife, destroying Wales’ very own Amazon. It flies in the face of Wales’ excellent Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, and threatens to leave taxpayers with a bill of around £2 billion pounds – all for a possible saving of only 10 minutes’ average journey time.”

He said the Welsh Government should scrap the plan and invest instead in a ‘modern, fully integrated public transport system, fit for the people of Wales’.

Katie-Jo Luxton, RSPB Cymru Director, also argued that the Gwent Levels was a nationally important area for nature which had given a home to the first common cranes to breed in Wales in over 400 years, and was one two remaining UK strongholds for the shrill carder bumble bee.

Fourteen miles of motorway would destroy and fragment this fragile wetland ecosystem and jeopardise the future of these species in Wales.

Robert Hepworth, CPRW National Executive and Joint Chair of CALM, said the proposed motorway would be the death-knell of the unique landscape of the Gwent Levels formed over thousands of years. It is not just the intrusion of a six lane motorway but the development that a bypass will attract onto the levels,” he said.

A decision on the relief road is in the hand of newly-elected First Minister, Mark Drakeford.