ON Saturday, May 23 I visited Tesco, Chepstow to discuss the issue of road safety.

During my two minute conversation with the security representative to highlight the issue at approximately 9.30am, six people crossed the safety barrier into the traffic on the A48.

When I returned to discuss the issue with the store manager, Nigel Carwardine at 10.30am, we stood at the point of concern, and during our 10 minute conversation, 12 people crossed the safety barrier from/onto the road to enter/exit Tesco including one elderly lady, unsteady on her feet, who almost tripped down the unmade.

Assuming an eight-hour period per day, that extrapolates to a staggering 180,000 transgressions of the road safety barrier per year.

Clearly we were there at a busy time, but even if that is 10 to 20 times busier than the average at the time we witnessed it, that still equates to about 10,000 transgressions per year.

A simple solution would be to complete the barrier between the Tesco car park and the main road.

There are two gaps which people use. The end of barrier at the first point is about six inches high and easy to step over.

The barrier at the second point is about 18 inches high and not so easy but the more agile do.

There is approximately a two-feet drop the other side of the barrier, on the Tesco property, with a path worn by the volume of pedestrians using it.

A simple, but incomplete, solution would be to just extend the existing steel fence by one pitch.

At least this would prevent the elderly and infirm, and people with young children, from stepping over the six-inch barrier.

This would be a tactical (short term) solution, until a strategic solution for the whole junction has been agreed. I first raised this in November 2013 with the South Wales Trunk Road Agency.

I believe that once a safety concern has been highlighted there is a duty of care to try and contain the issue as quickly as possible.

There is no doubt that people stepping/climbing over a safety barrier directly into the traffic on a complex junction, with no official pedestrian access on a trunk road is a safety concern.

– Ian Gower, Stroat.