TWO consecutive days of traffic chaos have led for renewed calls for solutions to gridlock plaguing a key town.

Commuters travelling in and out Chepstow faced long delays after strong winds closed the M48 first Severn Bridge from Thursday afternoon, until the early hours of Friday, March 13.

As a result a planned overnight closure of the westbound M4 Prince of Wales had to be delayed until the M48 bridge had reopened.

Traffic was backed up along a long stretch of the the A48 on the Gloucestershire side of the border during Thursday afternoon and there were delays of up to an hour on the M4 at Magor.

The day before a large vehicke broke down on the A48 bridge, over the River Wye, near the Tesco superstore during rush hour on Wednesday afternoon.

Gwent Police had two officers on the scene from around 5pm until the road cleared at 7.20pm and arranged for the vehicle to be recovered.

That reduced traffic across the town to a snail like crawl which also led to delays on the M48 Severn Bridge with traffic also stretching back into England from both Chepstow bridges.

Newport Bus, which runs services between the city and Chepstow, warned of delays as a result.

Traffic in and out of Wales, through Chepstow, has also been disrupted with the closure to vehicles, since last October, of the Old Wye Bridge on safety grounds, after a crack was discovered on one of its pillars. The closure of the single land bridge could be in place for up to 18 months.

Monmouthshire county councillor Armand Watts said he was caught up in crawling traffic on Wednesday afternoon.

Cllr Watts (Lab, Bulwark and Thornwell) said: “I had to take the dog to the vets and it took about 40 minutes. It would be a five minute journey normally. It was chaos.”

He said: “One vehicle breaking down, or perhaps running out of petrol, has caused for a short period of time gridlock. It’s not Chepstow’s fault the problem is all the new housing being built in Lydney and why we need to discuss a new Severn crossing from Lydney to Sharpness.”

Mount Pleasant ward councillor Paul Pavia, said it had taken his wife nearly an hour to travel around one and a half miles from the Severn Bridge to their home on Wednesday.

Cllr Pavia said he has flagged concerns about Chepstow’s ability to absorb more traffic in light of Monmouthshire’s own development plan proposing 146 homes near the High Beech roundabout and 770 near Portskewett.

The Conservative councillor said: “An accident at any of the pinch-points through the town brings it and the surrounding areas to a halt.”

Cllr Christopher Edwards, (Con, St Kingmark) said: “The regular occurrence of vehicle breakdowns in Chepstow is not just an inconvenience it exposes how fragile our local road network has become.

“We need a combination of better traffic management, quicker roadside response to clear incidents, and long-term infrastructure improvements.”