Police insight on road closures

Gwent police say closing a motorway is not done lightly

Police have explained why they close roads, sometimes for many hours, after collisions, despite the disruption to travellers and businesses.

On Thursday, the M4 motorway westbound near Swansea was closed after pedestrians were injured.

An inquest has also heard how the M4 near Newport was shut for 11 hours in August after a lorry driver collapsed.

Gwent police said there was a duty to crash victims and their families to treat the area as a crime scene.

But the length of time it took to reopen the motorway around Newport in August drew criticism from politicians who raised the issue in the Welsh assembly.

The disruption affected not only the M4 but also the network of surrounding roads, with some motorists taking up to 10 hours to drive through the city of Newport.

At the time, the Liberal Democrat leader in the assembly, Mike German, said there needed to be an "emergency plan" to deal with the chaos the road closures bring.

Once a scene has been destroyed then that evidence can never be regained Insp Lee Ford, Gwent Police road unit

Speaking after Thursday's inquest into the crash in which 55-year-old Colin Hart died in August, and following the accident that closed the M4 in Swansea, Mr German said there was still a need for contingency plans to be improved.

"Traffic in south Wales is dependent on the M4 and clearing congestion is crucial," he insisted.

"I believe we need plans for a series of diversions with clear signs and a police presence to prevent surrounding roads becoming clogged up.

"But once again we have seen major delays on the M4 and I think it's a reminder to the government to keep Wales moving."

However, Gwent Police have explained into just why they close road networks, in an interview for BBC Wales.

Insp Lee Ford of the force road policing unit said such a decision was "not taken lightly".

He said: "Every incident is dealt with in line with the road death investigation manual and we have strict guidelines and procedures that run through there.

"We would have a team with collision investigators, crime scene investigators and potentially a pathologist.

'Evidence'

"All of that can take a long time. Because once a scene has been destroyed then that evidence can never be regained."

He added the Gwent force no longer refered to incidents on the road as "accidents".

He said: "'Accident' infers that nobody was to blame and it was something that was unavoidable.

"We have to ensure for the victims and for the families of those victims that we conduct a full and thorough investigation so we can provide the family a sense of closure.

"On top of that, the evidence that we look at is necessary sometimes for crown court but certainly for the coroner."

Supt Nigel Russell told the Western Mail: "What we have now put in place is that following a serious collision such as one on the M4 motorway or the A449 - a major trunk road - we will send an additional senior officer to the traffic unit in Coryton.

He said: "This was established to have an officer to liaise with services, and has the sole role of managing disruption and relieves the responsibility of the investigating officer at the scene.

"He or she (the investigating officer) can get on with dealing with the crash in the knowledge that someone is dealing with the problem of the traffic."