I’VE recently been in contact with the Welsh Minister for Economy, Science and Transport, Mrs. Edwina Hart, over exactly the A48 issue, having been stuck in  the jams on the English side more than a few times.

It seems that both she and our own MP, Mr. Mark Harper, are living under the delusion that the main cause of the problem is the closure of the old Wye Bridge.

What utter codswallop!

To anyone who’s ever actually driven over the old bridge it’s obvious that the amount of traffic waiting at the bridge traffic lights, never more than four or five vehicles, couldn’t possibly be the cause of such mayhem over the new bridge.

It’s also the case that the jams don’t  only occur  during rush hours, as I’ve been stuck in one of them at 2.30 pm on a Thursday afternoon.

I suggested  to Mrs. Hart that  the traffic lights near Chepstow Tesco weren’t operating properly and her reply assured me that ‘they have been operating fault-free and no timing changes have been made to the sequence’.

I suppose that depends on what one’s definition of ‘fault-free’ is, but the facts are that the north and southbound traffic flows are wildly asymmetric, there only being a dozen vehicles heading north at the same time as the southbound jam is a mile long.

It’s only too obvious that decisions taken in the Welsh Government were to the advantage of their own voters and to the detriment of those of us who live and work in the Forest, who have zero control over their actions.

It’s about time the situation changed to make it fair to all of us.

– Kit Spackman, Lydney.