A CHEPSTOW motorist fed up with the town’s daily rush-hour gridlock has come up with some low cost modifications which he believes would significantly improve traffic flow.

Kevin Chapman told the Beacon that he works in ‘the fast-moving consumer goods industry’ as an engineering consultant where part of his role is ensuring bottle necks are removed in order to keep processes flowing.

“Like many other Chepstow and surrounding area motorists I am extremely frustrated at the daily rush hour traffic chaos in Chepstow, which is only going to get worse with the hundreds of new homes planned for Station Road and the removal of the Severn Bridge tolls in a few weeks.” he said.

“Everyone appears to be pinning their hopes on a by-pass. Although ideal, I would suggest there are fairly low cost modifications that can be carried out to keep the traffic moving smoothly.”

He says the current traffic flow design is ‘illogical’ and goes on to describe three bottlenecks in the town and his proposals for improving them.

1) From the east travelling west:

Bottleneck 1: Traffic travelling to Tesco queues through two sets of traffic lights in order to enter a car park to which vehicles run parallel for circa 200 metres.

As the lanes are not dedicated, drivers use the left lane for straight on and then are slowed by traffic turning left.

Proposal: Make a dedicated slip road for Tesco IN. And widen the two lanes further back so that two cars are processed at the traffic lights .

Bottleneck 2: Traffic at the same junction wanting to turn right takes the outside lane, then has to move back to the only lane [as the road narrows to one lane before turning right.

Proposal: Make the road two lanes between the lights and the right turn to town.

Bottleneck 3: And probably the worst: St Lawrence Roundabout where five roads converge with little or no thought to traffic flow.

Proposal: Make the two lanes entering from the east dedicated i.e. left M48 and High Beech, centre Caldicot etc, right A466 Wye Valley.

This would entail closing the High Beech to A48 at this point, however it could be routed on at the Mathern Road bridge and a dedicated feeder road on to the A48 East or merge to the west.

Kevin says that in his opinion ’this would be No 1 action, as the majority of the traffic is heading to the Wye Valley Link road and subsequently the M48’.

A spokesperson for the Welsh Government told the Beacon: “We are working with Monmouthshire County Council and the bordering English Councils on assessing a number of options to help reduce congestion in Chepstow.

“In addition, routes within the town are being monitored to review the impact that removal of the tolls from both bridges later this month will have.

“There will be some phased changes to the A48 Station Road junction associated with a new housing development in the town, including an update of the traffic signals. However, the proposed Chepstow Bypass does not form part of our current forward work programmes as detailed in the National Transport Finance Plan.

“The A48 is an air quality management area and the Welsh Government is working with MCC to identify measures to help improve the air quality in the area and a number have already been designed but are subject to further review.

"One of the measures is to improve the Highbeech roundabout along with the A466 and Newhouse interchange at Junction 2 of the M48.”