Villagers 'trapped' and fears animals 'could starve' as landslip shuts road for weeks

People feel "trapped" and farmers fear livestock could "starve" after a significant landslip closed the main route in and out of a village several weeks ago.

The landslip happened below the lane between Cwmyoy and Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, on 30 January, causing a vertical drop immediately next to the road.

The diversion includes a single track route on Wales' highest mountain road, which locals say adds hours to journeys while some are unable to use it, including agricultural suppliers.

The council said the affected road would be closed until it could deliver a "safe, engineered solution" and warned that further movement was likely to happen underneath it, making it "extremely unsafe".

Mark Morgan is a resident and farmer in Llanthony.

Since the R1 closed, a journey by car to the nearby town of Abergavenny has increased to 1hrs 15 mins, according to Google Maps, when previously it would have taken around 30 minutes.

While a journey by car to Mark's nearest hospital in Cwmbran has increased to 1hr 36 mins.

But Mark argued that journeys via the diversion were taking much longer than mapping systems suggested.

"My father, who's just coming up to 90, lives a couple of miles down the road," he said.

"Normally if he needs me for anything it's a 10-minute trip to come and see him but now I'm looking at two-hours to get there and two-hours to come home again afterwards."

He added: "It's over two-and-a-half-hours if we have to go over the top [on the mountain road] to get to A&E. The post won't come over the top, they've said the road is too dangerous to deliver the post and yet they expect us to drive that way."

Mark said he wanted there to be a solution "as quick as possible".

"Whether that's putting in some sort of temporary structure or putting a temp track across the field alongside the landslide."

He added: "I understand that Monmouthshire County Council are moving as fast as possible but for people here it just seems that's not fast enough.

"We have no timescale and people are rightly worried about these things."

That's a feeling echoed by another local farmer, Bryony Gittins, who said there were around 150 affected residents in the community.

"That's a lot of people to then feel trapped and not be able to get out," she said.

"Although there is the alternative mountain road, for a lot of people that's not an option.

"There are older people who aren't comfortable driving such a road, there are those needing medical attention, there are people who need constant medical care that need to go in for weekly hospital appointments. The kids miss their sports clubs, they miss their friends."

Bryony said the landslip had left 850 of her sheep at risk.

"I have huge concern of how I'm going to manage to keep the sheep food coming in that I need. The reliance on heavy agricultural vehicles is huge," she said.

"I don't have enough hay for them to last until when they'll be lambing from April and typically they're coming into a period now where they need to have a higher nutritional intake."

Bryony said the situation was time critical for her pregnant ewes, especially those having twins which need to start having additional concentrated food soon.

"Otherwise their lambs aren't going to develop properly, they're not going to be born very strong," she said.

"The ewes won't be producing milk for them so the implications are huge not just economically for the farm business itself - if I'm not producing lambs to sell then that's my livelihood - but also in the welfare for the sheep themselves, they're hungry and they'll get hungrier and hungrier and I don't have anything to feed them, so it's worrying me a lot."

Bryony said her future depended on a solution being found within weeks.

"There will be starving animals," she said.

"The closer we get to lambing and pregnancy, it'll be a long time for veterinary care to come in to reach us.

"There are other farmers in the valley that'll have cows that are due to calve and they will not be able to get the veterinary attention that they might need quite quickly, and it's not just that, there's also the need for other supplies like medical supplies like lambing supplies that all the farmers need and we can't get it".

Chris Powell, an agricultural contractor based in Llanthony, said his business was losing income as a result of access being shut off.

"Farming as an industry tend to use big vehicles, trailers and tractors. Some physically can't use the diversion," he explained.

"We can't get supplies in, we use a lot of red diesel in agriculture and tankers are refusing to use the diversion route because it's not suitable.

"A lot of our customers are below the slip, so there's a huge percentage of customers we've had for decades that we're having to turn down.

"Especially when generations have built the business up over decades and in this industry customer loyalty is a huge thing, so it's hard for us to let them down and then it's hard to get customers back."

Chris is calling for an emergency alternative route to be set up using the fields beside the landslip.

"A temporary diversion that would take less than a week to put in so residents could maintain access, businesses could run as normal while they stabilise the situation," he said.

Chris said he would like to see all the bodies involved "try to put in preventative measures to avoid this happening again".

Monmouthshire County Council has set up a dedicated webpage to update people on the situation.

It said: "Because the slip has formed a vertical edge immediately next to the carriageway, any further movement is likely to happen under the road surface. The tarmac may conceal signs of collapse until the moment failure occurs.

"For this reason, the road remains extremely unsafe."

The council said specialist geotechnical engineers had inspected the site and "based on their advice - and the continued deterioration - the road must remain closed due to the serious risk to public safety".

It said some members of the public had "moved the concrete barriers and signage and have continued to use the road", urging people "not to ignore the closure".

The council said it was working with "relevant departments and partner organisations to coordinate appropriate measures for essential services including emergency access, school transport, refuse collection, and other key provisions".

"The road will remain closed until a safe, engineered solution can be designed and delivered" adding that it had "now initiated the required investigation, monitoring, and design work".

In an additional email to residents on 27 February, the council said its investigatory works had been "positive" and said it was "working with the contractor to finalise design and agree mobilisation".