PLANS to draft a community response from residents set to be affected by the M4 relief road have now been set in motion.

Residents from Magor, Undy, Rogiet, Llandevenny and surrounding areas met for the second time in two weeks on Wednesday evening.

Those in attendance at the meeting have agreed to start writing their own responses opposing the construction of the proposed £1.2 billion Welsh Government project, namely the ‘black route’.

The group are aiming to pool their responses into a collective letter to be submitted before the October 4 deadline, in order to be presented to the upcoming public inquiry in November.

“We’re going to be looking at a counter argument for the need for the new M4 and demonstrate our concerns over some of the information they’ve used,” said Cllr Frances Taylor, who will be collating the response.

“There will be some of my constituents who will be for the road, and they will have plenty of representations from government experts.

“This response is intended to give a voice to those who haven’t got experts speaking up for them and reflect a number of views from our communities.”

Noise disruption was a major topic of the meeting with several Llandevenny residents in attendance noting the Welsh Government’s use of averages when calculating anticipated noise levels.

One resident, who said he had a background in engineering, said: “I think that they’ve grossly underestimated noise level and disruption in their area.”

Another Llandevenny local also expressed his concerns over the proposed ‘noise barrier’ which will be installed if the Government-backed ‘black route’ goes ahead.

He said: “The barrier will be put on the Magor side, which means that the noise will be reflected and amplified back onto us.”

The group also decided that in the “worst case scenario” that the black route is accepted, they would propose that different alignment could be suggested with several residents putting forward their own options.

Cllr Taylor aims to have a draft of the response together by Tuesday September 20, ahead of the group’s next planned meeting on Thursday September 22 at 6.30pm at the Golden Lion, Magor.

The group are then looking to circulate the letter to as many residents as possible to give them a chance to read it and add them to a backing list if they support the opposition.