Parents took to social media this morning to vent their frustration after the temporary set of traffic lights at the Hereford Road junction failed for the morning run to school on Tuesday morning (Sept 10).
Alistair Ray, a parent from Osbaston said he walked his daughter to the junction and saw a member of the public directing traffic whilst a man in a hi-vis jacket was attempting to get the lights to work.
“It was chaos” he told the Beacon, “pupils having to walk through cars to get to the comprehensive school, as well as Haberdashers’ pupils trying to get up to their school, parents trying to get their children to Osbaston School,
“In my opinion, that they should have done it in summer holiday if they had thought about that and planned it properly there wouldn't be the school traffic on the roads and there wouldn’t be hundreds of kids trying to cross multiple roads in ways that are unsafe and ultimately well I'm afraid probably resulting in somebody getting hurt” he added.
One motorist said that they had been sat for 45 minutes from Osbaston trying to get through the lights and gave up.... worse than ever. Traffic clogged both ways.
Another, Paul Williams said “ Utter chaos and the guy looked clueless who was there.”
Fiona Wilton added: “It's been horrendous?! Never see any work happening there either? They should either work overtime to get it done or just do one segment at a time instead of holding the entire town hostage.
A spokesman for Welsh Water said: “We can confirm there was a technical problem with one of the traffic lights in Monmouth this morning.
We have an operative on site to manage the lights from 7am to 7pm, who was working to clear the traffic. However, the fault required a specialist fitter to repair the faulty light, which has now been completed.
We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused while we carry out these essential works to renew our water mains in and around Monmouth.