TUCKED under one of the UK’s busiest motorways lives a group of residents who confess to loving life thanks to the surprising benefits of being so close to the highway.
Port Talbot in is home to hundreds of families who enjoy living under the M4 despite roughly 130,000 vehicles thundering over it everyday.
Neighbours living in the shadow of the UK’s busiest motorways confess to loving life Credit: WNS
Kirsty Bowd, 36, lives on King Street Credit: WNS
The town, famed for its smoggy steelworks and legendary actors Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and , is also known for the busy motorway.
The M4 is a 189- mile route that runs from London to Carmarthenshire in West Wales.
Neighbours love their highway to heaven – using the concrete girders as a pole for their washing lines and others praising its perfect shelter from sun or rain.
Clare Reeves, a checkout worker, moved next door to the motorway just two years ago and is already mortgage free.
She moved 70 miles from Bristol to buy the family home for £136,000.
Clare, 49, said: “We bought the house obviously knowing that the motorway was here. If we had thought it would be a problem we wouldn’t have bought it.
“My husband sometimes sleeps with earplugs in but I have got used to the noise.”
Opposite Clare lives Evie Cursons, a 20-year-old mental support worker.
The concrete highway is perfect shelter from sun or rain Credit: WNS
Jean Davies moved under the motorway in 1963 Credit: WNS
She lives on Pont Street, one of several roads of terraced houses which became cul-de-sacs when the M4 was built at one end of it.
Evie said: “It is like a safety net. I’ve been here all my life and it just feels like it adds a real sense of community.
“I have never known any different but when I was a child we could always play in the street and our parents wouldn’t have to worry about where we were.
“I’m pretty sure all the houses have double glazing and so you can’t hear the road at all when they are shut but when it’s been hot obviously you can hear it but you get used to it pretty quickly – it’s like white noise.”
Leilea Jammali was worried about the noise, but says she doesn’t notice it all Credit: WNS
Hundreds of families live under the M4 motorway as cars, vans and lorries thunder overhead Credit: WNS
Grandmother Jean Heatman, 73, is grateful for the motorway which looms directly over her back garden on Ynys Street.
“I have lived here for 53 years and it has never bothered me,” she said.
“As the years have gone by the traffic has been a bit more busy but it is not a problem.”
The retired kitchen assistant said the road above has provided a valuable shelter over the years.
“During covid when people were not allowed to meet indoors so children’s dance groups would gather under the bridge to hold their classes and it was lovely to see.
“And at the moment with it being so hot I can take my dog for a walk up and down here and stay in the shade to keep it cool.”
Another neighbour dubbed the bridge her “free gazebo” while another man said it meant “we could buy the house so cheap.”
Around the corner is Llewellyn Street – where 150 on one side of the road were demolished to make way for the M4.
Claire Reeves paid £136,000 for her home by the highway Credit: WNS
Evie Cursons said ‘it is like a safety net’ Credit: WNS
Pensioner Jean Davies, 85, moved onto the road in 1963, and witnessed the houses opposite her own being replaced by the motorway.
The mother-of-two said: “It was built while we were living here so we have seen lots of changes over the years.
“We were never worried about the noise from the road, you soon get used to it, and we have the main trainline running behind the garden too.
“It used to be a lovely street where everyone knew who the neighbours were. Now people are coming and going all the time.”
The M4 is a 189 mile route runs from London to Carmarthenshire in West Wales Credit: WNS
Residents use the concrete girders as a pole for their washing lines Credit: WNS
Widow Jean also bemoaned the council for failing to look after the motorway underpass – which has been allowed to grow wild as part of a conservation effort.
“They used to cut the grass,” she said. “Now it is just such a mess.”
College student Leilea Jammali, 18, said she feared “horror stories” when her family moved across Port Talbot to King Street in the shadow of the M4 in 2021.
She said: “My friends would say about the , the noise, or that the house was going to be shaking from all the traffic but honestly it has been fine.
Neighbours say ‘we love living here’ Credit: WNS
Joan Heatman, 73, lives on Ynys Street Credit: WNS
“The only time you notice it would be if a really big lorry was overhead and blocked out the sun. It could be like a total eclipse.
“We love living here.”
Kirsty Bowd, 36, says she loves living on King Street with the M4 rattling above just a stone’s throw away.
“I have been here 14 years and my friends are all living here. We don’t even notice the road really.
“All the neighbours here support each other and I absolutely love it.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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