UPDATE 18.29pm

Four passengers suffered minor injuries when a bus crashed into a lamppost today.

Injured passengers were taken to Our Lady of the Angels Primary School in Cwmbran before being taken to hospital following the crash at 12.30pm.

The Stagecoach bus was driving downhill on Victoria Street towards Abergavenny when, according to witnesses, it appeared to lose control, knocking down a lamppost and ripping a metal fence from the pavement.

Jay Matthews, eight, was at school when the accident happened. He said: "It was coming down and then there was a lorry there, and the bus crashed into the lamppost. I’m not sure how. The lamppost fell down.

"Most of the passengers looked okay. Some of them went into my school. They were injured. We rang an ambulance."

He said the fire service arrived after oil was smelled coming from the bus.

Jay’s mother Addasa Griffiths said she saw the road closure after coming to watch the school sports day.

The road was closed for several hours with police redirecting traffic, but reopened at around 3.50pm after the bus was taken away on a recovery truck.

Orange plastic netting was put up as a makeshift barrier along the road where the fence was knocked down.

Malcolm Gough, landlord of the Halfway Hotel in Cwmbran, said: "Everyone has been coming in here from town and can’t even walk through, they have had to take a good half a mile detour.

"The frightening part is it was their school sports day and (the school was) packed."

A Welsh Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: "We sent two Rapid Response Vehicles and an emergency ambulance to the scene, and four patients with minor injuries were taken to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport."

UPDATE: 4.13pm A Welsh Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “We were called at 12.32pm to reports of a one-vehicle road traffic collision on Victoria Street, Cwmbran.

“We sent two Rapid Response Vehicles and an Emergency Ambulance to the scene, and four patients with minor injuries were taken to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport.”

UPDATE: 3.34pm A Gwent Police spokesman said no one was seriously injured but that there are now five people being assessed for minor injuries.

The Roads Policing Unit have launched an investigation into how the incident happened.

The vehicle is waiting to be moved from the scene. Torfaen Council have been informed.

 

 

FOUR people have been injured after a bus crashed in Old Cwmbran this afternoon.

 

The Stagecoach bus crashed into a lamppost on Victoria Street near Our Lady of The Angels RC Primary School.

Gwent Police said the four people are being treated for minor injuries.