A traveller attempting to make a 550 mile round trip from one seaside town in England to another in Pembrokeshire to collect a camper van was stopped by police yesterday (Wednesday) for flouting non-essential COVID-19 travel regulations.

When the Pembrokeshire Road Policing Unit team stopped a motorhome on the A477 near Red Roses, the driver of the vehicle stated he’d caught the train to Tenby from Brighton that morning to collect the vehicle, and was in the process of completing the 275 mile return journey home to the East Sussex town!

The motorist freely admitted it wasn’t ‘essential travel’ to police officers who reported the person accordingly for breaking the Government rules and issued them with a fine.

It’s the latest example of a motorist breaching COVID-19 travel regulations to head to the county this week, one of which included a driver that had made a 60 mile round trip to buy some tomato plants in Pembrokeshire!

On Sunday the Pembrokeshire Roads Policing Unit reported that the ‘vast majority’ of motorists stop-checked on the weekend were travelling in accordance with government guidelines, however one driver stopped on the A477 at Kilgetty that afternoon admitted that they had journeyed to the area simply to shop for plants for their garden.

The two occupants of another vehicle stopped at Begelly used the fact that they were looking to get a coffee as an excuse for being on the roads. Both were issued with tickets for breach of Covid-19 regs, with police stating that it was not the first time this driver had been reported for such actions since lockdown.

The previous day one driver stopped by Kilgetty initially claimed to police officers that he was a key-worker, but soon changed his story and admitted that he was out for a spin without any good reason. The motorist was issued a fixed penalty notice and turned back.