MP confirms opposition to Shrewsbury relief road plans and wants money spent elsewhere
A county MP has come out in opposition to plans for Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road.
Helen Morgan, who was elected as Lib Dem MP for North Shropshire in a by-election last December, has said she would rather see the money set aside for the road spent on the county's market towns.
Shropshire Council wants to build the £80.1m road to complete the ring road around Shrewsbury.
The project has been met with significant opposition, and is currently waiting to go before the authority's planning committee – having been delayed on several occasions.
The council will pay for £28.5m of the project, while the Department for Transport has given £54m towards the construction, along with £4.2m from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership.
Shropshire Council would however be responsible for any increase in costs, and issue flagged up by opponents of the road, in light of the current trend of rising construction costs.
In a letter to a constituent Mrs Morgan says she believes the road would "worsen" the situation with traffic in her constituency.
She has also raised concerns about the environmental impact of both building the road, and its ongoing effect.
She said: "I understand the concerns of those who live on ‘rat runs’ to the North of Shrewsbury and sympathise with their wish for a solution to the problem.
"However on balance, I don’t believe that this road will solve the issue. Traffic on the Battlefield Link Road, between the Ellesmere Road and Battlefield roundabouts is predicted to increase by 25 per cent.
"Significantly increased traffic levels are also predicted on the A53 and A49 as they approach Battlefield, and on the A525 (Ellesmere Road) as it approaches the ‘Audi’ roundabout.
"Given that these roads are already congested at peak times, and there is no plan to improve the problematic Sundorne roundabout bottleneck on the A49 stretch of the bypass, I think the Relief Road would worsen the situation for those in North Shropshire.
"No modelling on the impact of the traffic on the ‘rat runs’ in North Shropshire has been undertaken.
She added: "On top of my concerns about congestion, there is clearly a problematic environmental impact of the road, which when construction costs are taken into account will increase our carbon footprint and do great damage to the countryside around Shrewsbury."
Mrs Morgan said she would prefer that funding for the project was used to improve existing roads – as well as investment in town's across the county.
She said: "Shropshire’s tax payers will cover 100 per cent of any cost over-runs on the road, in addition to the £33m they will already have to committed to the project.
"Given inflation in the construction industry since this project was initially proposed, and the fact that large infrastructure projects often exceed their budgets, I don’t think we can afford it.
"I would rather see improvements to the pinch points on the existing ring road, and much need investment in our market towns."
