Concerned farmers in rural Wales have warned that their animals will starve following a massive landslide which has left residents ‘trapped’ for more than a month.
Since January 30, the villages of Cwmyoy and Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, have been cut off from the outside world after a landslip damaged a nearby road.
Villagers instead have to endure long journeys across Wales’ highest mountain road, named the Gospel Pass, which many agricultural suppliers are unable to use.
Monmouthshire County Council have so far failed to fix the road and in their most recent update, published nearly two weeks ago, the council said the road remained ‘extremely unsafe’.
Farmers in the area have warned that the council is not moving fast enough to fix the problem and if the road is not repaired soon their livestock will die.
That includes Bryony Gittins who claimed her 850 sheep are at risk if a solution is not found within weeks.
She told BBC News: ‘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.
‘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.’
Ms Gittins has also voiced concern for her pregnant ewes who need additional concentrated food soon otherwise the lambs won’t be born strong.
She raised the alarm that the lambs will be ‘hungry and they’ll get hungrier and hungrier’ and the farmer will be left with nothing to feed them with.
Meanwhile Chris Powell, an agricultural contractor, has lost income because big vehicles such as tractors are unable to cross the Gospel Pass.
Mr Powell 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.
The road closure is not only a life and death situation for livestock with the landslip also causing major disruption to emergency services.
Michelle Turner who lives in Llanthony said: ‘Ambulances and fire engines are forced to divert via Hay-on-Wye, resulting in journeys of up to two hours to reach A&E,’ she said.
She claimed that there have already been medical emergencies in the valley, including incidents requiring CPR, and in at least one case barriers had to be removed to allow emergency access.
Ms Turner added that residents ‘feel profoundly let down’ by the local council’s response to the problem.
‘We all pay council tax yet we have effectively been cut off with little warning, inadequate communication and no clear or safe plan to protect residents’ welfare,’ she said.
Monmouthshire council has set up a dedicated webpage to update residents on the situation.
In its most recent update 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 warned that 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’.
They added that the road will remain closed until a ‘safe, engineered solution can be designed and delivered’.
The Daily Mail have approached Monmouthshire County Council for a comment.
