A BARRIER is needed to stop drivers from seriously injuring or killing someone in Caldicot town centre, says town councillor.

Sgt Phil Purcell, neighbourhood sergeant for Severnside, told Caldicot Town Council that two more drivers have been fined for driving through the pedestrian zone on Newport Road since the first £30 fixed penalty fine was issued on a driver in June. The council approved last week a request to consider a safety barrier or bollards to be put in place to stop vehicles driving through the shopping area.

Cllr Alan Davies, town councillor for Castle ward, said: "There will inevitably be a fatality or someone seriously injured if something isn't done about it. This council has a decision to make.

"We are Caldicot Town Council and that is our town centre - we have to do all we can. I don't want to see a toddler under the wheel of a car or a van."

Cllr Davies said there had been near misses with a van reversing out onto a woman with two toddlers. Calls for action came after a woman with a pushchair containing a 20-month-old baby was involved in a road collision with a van in August of last year.

A permit scheme was set up following a public meeting for businesses on Newport Road to access the area before 10.30am and after 4pm.

But councillors say now a safety barrier needs to be put in place to stop the unauthorised vehicles driving through the zone. They will now speak with the emergency services and Monmouthshire council on how to move forward with the plan and how it can be funded.

Sgt Purcell told the council that on his way to the council meeting on Wednesday he had given a driver a warning for attempting to drive through the pedestrian zone. A 59-year-old man from Cheltenham has now been reported for summons for racially aggravated public order after he verbally abused two town councillors.

The councillors were abused after they told the man it was a pedestrian zone back in June.