THE busiest motorway service station in Wales would be commercially unviable if the current M4 relief road plan around Newport goes ahead, its owner has warned.

Roadchef currently employs 190 people at Magor Services – but said those jobs will be at risk if no better way to connect the £1.2 billion road is found.

The company’s chief executive Simon Turl said the Welsh Government had been asked to reconsider their current plan but to no avail.

He now fears that up to 80 per cent of its trade could evaporate when the new road opens.

Mr Turl said: “We would much rather have just got this sorted out. Within the scale of the road that they’re building, we don’t think this is something that couldn’t have been resolved and we’ve been a bit staggered that there hasn’t been attention in getting this resolved.”

Motorists on the new road, which could be completed by 2021, would need to travel up to 3.4 miles on the current M4 – 1.7 miles in each direction – because of the lack of a direct road or junction connecting the services to it. Mr Turl said Roadchef will be a formal objector to the road and will submit concerns to the Welsh Government before May 4’s deadline.

He added: “We’ve gradually had to ramp up our activities to say: ‘look, no one’s listening to us, we need to get the message over.’”

The company was planning to invest £1.75 million at the service station this summer, employing another 40 people, adding another shop and increasing its seating and parking capacity. That is now on hold until a satisfactory resolution is found.

Mr Turl made clear that Roadchef do not oppose the potential changes to the M4, which are scheduled to start in 2018.

“We know it can’t stay as it is. From a motorway service station point of view, smooth traffic actually makes it work better. Traffic jams are not good for us. We’re very supportive of sorting out the problem,” he said.

He added: “The frustration I have is, we’ve got potentially 190 jobs at risk here and more if we’d have been able to expand because of a decision Welsh Government have made. It’s not down to anyone else. We’re not doing it; we want to carry investing and developing but for providing access.

“I’m not making out that it’s cheap to put a junction into a motorway – it’s not – but it’s taking away potentially those 200 jobs.”

If the road is built and the service station missed off the route, a 52-mile gap would be left between Leigh Delamere in Chippenham and the Cardiff Gate services. Under Department for Transport guidance the distance between service areas on motorways should be no more than 28 miles.

Mr Turl added: “I started in motorways in 1978. I have never seen anything like this anywhere across the UK. It's the first time I've seen anything this extreme done.”

Roadchef has met Monmouthshire council leader Cllr Peter Fox and Mill councillor Frances Taylor, who are concerned by recent developments.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The new M4 junction location takes into account all environmental, social and economic factors. In addition to connecting to the new road, Magor Services’ existing connections to the trunk road network will remain in place.”