The area is changing rapidly with many new house and also big employment developments.
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| South
Monmouthshire stretches from just outside Newport in the west to
Chepstow beside the Severn Bridge in the east. The M4
motorway gives it excellent access either into the whole of South
Wales from England or from Wales to Bristol and the rest of England over
the old or the new Severn Bridges. The old Severn Bridge uses the M48 and
the new bridge is the main M4. see map opposite
The area is changing rapidly with many new house and also big employment developments. |
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The famous Coldra roundabout in Newport where the M4 meets the A449 dual carriageway to Raglan, north Monmouthshire and the Midlands. On the hill in the distance is the impressive Celtic Manor Hotel. the Celtic Manor also has leisure facilities like a golf course and is set to host the Ryder Cup. This sort of infractructure helps to promote this area to business. | |
| Beside the Coldra roundabout at Langstone on the old A48 road there are new office developments (see photo), new large detached homes and other hotels like the Newport Hilton. all have been constructed within the last 10 yaers and thee are signs of further extensions. This area is known as an urban rural fringe in this case for Newport. | |
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Here further east on the Newport / Monmouthshire border is the Llanwern steelworks site. This factory used to employ almost 400 workers in the 1990s. It is now in the process of closing. The company Corus operate steel making and is an Anglo-Dutch corporation. It took over the privatised British Steel company. | |
| About 500 metres from Llanwern is Gwent Euro Park a new business development very close to the Magor junction (Junction 22A)on the M4. This is a distribution warehouse development that has attracted store companies like Tesco and Wilkinsons. There is a constant stream of lorries stocking the warehouse and of delivery lorries taking supplies to the shop stores of the region. | |
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The photo shows the Wilkinson warehouse and the line of delivery lorries. The site has 91 hectares of which 20 are still vacant. The warehouses are here because of the accessibility given by the M4 motorway. | |
| At Magor right beside the Junction 22A is the large Interbrew brewery first built in 1979. | |
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Near Caldicot (at Portskewett see map above) is the Mitel newtowork and semi-conductor factory. The M4 corridor in England is famous for having attracted hi-techand the same is true for this part of Wales. Mitel is a telecommunications business and was originally founded in Canada. One of the co-founders Terry Matthews had come from wales and he is the investor behind the Celtic Manor hotel. | |
| At Chepstow there are further distribution warehouses for Asda and Tesco within sight of both the old and the ne Severn Bridges and within one minutes drive time of the M4 motorway. | |
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Virtually every settlement along the A48 which runs parallel to the M4 has seen significant growth of new housing. Further estates are envisaged within the Monmouthshire Unitary Development Plan. South Monmouthsire is a hot spot and its proximity and accessibiility is very attractive to middle class commuters. Most of the houses are detached and are on private estates like this development at Rogiet (see map). Traffic calming measures have been installed on these busy commuter roads. | |
| This estate is at Thornwell between Chepstow and the Severn Bridge. There are several hundred new house here just two minutes from the Bridge. House prices are rising rapidly but it is sill much cheaper than the Bristol area over the Bridge. So some families buy here and pay the toll and petrol costs. Some families may start on this busy estate but then move up to bigger more select developments e.g. Pwllmeyric (see map) as their finances allow or as their family grows. | |
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Many of the families move on quickly through their careers in companies like Tesco or Asda. Tjis esate at Undy has many 'for sale' signs with a constant pass through of residents. The whole of south Monmouthshire seems young, busy and vibrant! This is a less remote more accessible semi rural area. A marked contrast to our chosen rural area. | |