RELIEF ROAD REVIEW
Conservationists are waiting on the inspectors’ findings of a year-long enquiry, that ended in early April, into proposals for a relief road to the M4 that would cut across nationally important wildlife s sites in the Gwent Levels.
Described by Gwent Wildlife Trust as Wales’ “equivalent of the Amazon rainforest”, the levels have a rich freshwater species diversity. In 2016, common cranes – which had come from those reintroduced into the Somerset Levels – bred there for the first time in some 400 years.
The project has also been criticised by the Welsh Government’s Future Generations commissioner, but ministers believe it is necessary to cut congestion around Newport.