Binning relief road 'a missed opportunity', HGV driver says

After decades of talking about a bypass to complete a ring of A roads around Shrewsbury, the project is over, or "dead in the water", according to Shropshire Council's new leader.

Heather Kidd said the council could not afford to pay for the road after the Labour government insisted that it was not willing to meet a funding shortfallof £156m.

Although the route was far from universally popular, the latest news has been met with disappointment and frustration from some residents, who have said the North West Relief Road (NWRR) was desperately needed to solve some of the town's traffic problems.

Lorry driver Kyle Longmuir said the bypass would have taken some of the heavy goods vehicles off the existing A roads, which are already too congested.

"It can be quite dangerous and you try not to get frustrated when people overtake you," said Mr Longmuir, from Shawbury.

"When it's busy it's slow and people make silly mistakes when there's more traffic around because people are impatient.

"If we could have a better flow of traffic, then people would make less questionable decisions and we wouldn't have as many accidents."

Residents living in villages north of Shrewsbury were hoping that the NWRR would have stopped drivers using the area as a cut-through, or "rat run".

Tamarin Bibow, who lives in Ruyton-XI-Towns with her husband and young family, addressed Shropshire councillors last month and asked the new administration to outline plans to tackle the problem.

"We suffer personally, as do may local residents, from serious pollution, both noise and air quality, resulting from traffic forced to come through our village," she said.

"Most of these vehicles use the rat run only because drivers see no practical alternative."

The council said it would continue to assess the weight, width and speed restrictions in the area.

What now for Shrewsbury's traffic woes?

Both Shropshire Council and Shrewsbury's Labour MP Julia Buckley have co-signed a letter to the government to say that the council can no longer afford to build the road, which was estimated earlier this year at £215m.

The council is waiting to find out if it has to pay the government back the £54.4m it was awarded in 2019 to contribute towards the project, then valued at £71m.

More than £20m of the Department for Transport funding has already been spent, largely on design engineer consultancy fees.