New M4

The New M4 (sometimes known as the M4 Toll Motorway) was a proposed motorway south of Newport, South Wales, which would have been the United Kingdom's second full toll-paying motorway. The plans were dropped by the Welsh Assembly Government in July 2009.

Background

The existing M4 motorway runs through the Brynglas Tunnels north of Newport city centre., BBC News, 7 December 2004 The existing road does not conform to current motorway standards: it lacks continuous hard shoulders, has closely-spaced junctions and narrows to a restricted two-lane section through the Brynglas Tunnels, where heavy congestion occurs at peak hours. Traffic data shows that the motorway is already approaching, and at times exceeds capacity; forecasts show that if nothing is done these problems will only increase.

A second motorway was proposed to the south of Newport, running for parallel to the existing motorway from junction 23A at Magor, to junction 29 at Castleton, avoiding the need to widen the tunnels. The concept behind the motorway was based on the M6 Toll, a similar relief road built to reduce traffic on the M6 motorway around Birmingham.

History

An M4 relief road between Magor and Castleton was first proposed by the Welsh Office in 1991, but there was little progress on the scheme in the following years. Plans for the New M4 were...
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