Shrewsbury MP says planning law needs to change after North West Relief Road delays
An MP has said the drawn-out process of delivering a relief road around Shrewsbury has convinced him that planning law in the UK needs to change.
Daniel Kawczynski says examples such as the controversial North West Relief Road planned for the outskirts of Shrewsbury, which after four years has not been granted planning permission, shows the current planning system is "not fit for purpose".
The Shrewsbury & Atcham MP had earlier this week criticised Shropshire Council and the Environment Agency over delays to the North West Relief Road project.
One of the causes for the delay was the Environment Agency requesting further clarification from Shropshire Council on the effects on the environment due to the new road, which will provide a single carriageway linking the northern and western parts of Shrewsbury.
Mr Kawczynski says he is determined to raise a debate in Parliament about the current planning system in a bid to see if it can be "streamlined" .
He said: "There are real problems with a system if it takes four years after businesses in Shrewsbury, and many other organisations who have been talking about a North West Relief Road for 50 years, instructed an MP to secure money for the project.
"I'm very proud to have secured £56 million and now four years on we are still not at the stage where the road has planning permission. We can't run a society like that.
"How much more will the road cost now? It is unsustainable.
"I will be taking lessons from this whole process and will challenge it in a parliamentary debate. It is not fit for purpose. We have to take power away from the handful of people that use the environment to cause delay."
He added: "What are the additional costs going to be? They will run into the millions of pounds, and what is that when it is replicated across the country? How many more relief roads across the UK are facing similar delays?
"As a society we cannot tolerate this."
The last official estimate for the North West Relief Road was in 2021 when it was calculated that it would cost £81 million, but officials from Shropshire Council have admitted that costs will now "inevitably" be higher.
The MP said that money added to infrastructure projects because of delays can no longer be tolerated after the UK has accumulated so much debt.
"Thanks to the huge demand for public services we [the UK] are £2.47 trillion in debt, and debt interest payments are at £96 billion a year, which is twice as much as we spend on our armed forces," he said.
"We now have a 100 per cent debt to GDP ratio for the first time in my lifetime.
"The situation across all of Europe is that because of the demand for public services, the international pandemic and the crisis in 2008 when we had to bail out the banks by £600 billion, as well as the crisis in Ukraine, we are heading towards financial insolvency.
"I secured £56 million for a road and four years on and we are still only moving towards the planning stage.
"It would not be tolerated in a private company as the company would go bust. But in the public sector people can delay projects like this for four years.
"Of course we have to be cognisant of the environment but the relief road is not a threat to the environment. People are using more and more electric vehicles so CO2 pollution is being reduced."
