Last Thursday, the Pembrokeshire Roads Policing Unit were tasked with escorting a large abnormal load from the M4 at Pont Abraham, to its destination at Murco refinery, Milford Haven.

The load was 138-tonne in weight, 16ft wide and 120-feet in length.

The load commenced its journey at 11.30 am and slowly made its way into Pembrokeshire, arriving at Robeston Wathen around 3.30 pm.

Due to the busy evening rush hour traffic at Haverfordwest, a decision was made to lay up the load at Robeston Wathen in order to prevent traffic mayhem within the busy county town.

At 10.30 am the following day, the load was escorted into Haverfordwest, along Freemans Way and up Merlins Hill, where the load was stopped and the tractor unit swapped to the rear of the trailer unit, in order to access Scarrowscant Lane.

The load then made its way via Ratford Bridge, Tiers Cross, and finally to the Murco refinery, where it arrived at 7.20 pm.

Sergeant Gary Jones, of the roads policing unit, commented that the escort had proved to be a very arduous task, although thankfully causing minimal disruption to motorists within the county. 

Due to the height restriction at Merlins Bridge, it necessitated re-routing the escort through Scarrowscant Lane and onto the B4327 Dale road. 

"Unfortunately, these roads were not constructed to accommodate wide loads, but thankfully due to the skill of the lorry driver, the event passed without incident," he said.