Red light plea to drivers ahead of new phase of Shrewsbury town centre roadworks next week

The work, which is likely to cause disruption on one of the county town's busiest routes, is being carried out by Shropshire Council to improve the area around the front of Shrewsbury Railway Station.

The area affected includes the gyratory next to Shrewsbury railway station, connecting Castle Gates – A5191, Chester Street – A528, Smithfield Road – A458, and Cross Street – A528, along with areas to the north and south.

The council said the latest stage of the work – phase two – will start on Monday.

It will see the paving slabs on the western side of Castle Foregate replaced, along with on the wide paved area in Chester Street by the Smithfield Road bus stop.

Traffic lights will be in place for the work, which will see the right-hand lane outside the station closed.

The council said it hopes work in both areas is completed before Christmas.

A statement from the council said: "Phase one of the work began in June and has covered the eastern side of Castle Foregate from the approach to Howard Street, through to the railway station entrance – with the closure of the left-hand lane on Castle Foregate to the front of the station.

"Traffic signals and the associated island have also been removed earlier than planned at the Cross Street/Chester Street junction to help ease congestion and avoid disruption to The Gateway when classes resume in mid-September.

"Phase two, which covers the western side of Castle Foregate from the approach to Cross Street and through to Smithfield Road, will see the replacement of the old paving slabs throughout.

"At the same time, similar work will also be undertaken at the wide paved area in Chester Street, by the Smithfield Road bus stop.

"Traffic management measures will be in place – including the closure of the right-hand lane outside the station – for health and safety reasons, and to enable the delivery of materials to the site.

"It’s hoped that work in these two areas will be largely completed before Christmas."

The ‘station quarter’ work – being carried out by local company McPhillips Ltd on behalf of Shropshire Council – is Government funded and is set to be completed by summer 2025.

Dan Morris, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for highways, said: "This project will see improvements around the station gyratory area which will greatly enhance the area, improve accessibility, and ease movement for people travelling through the area – whatever their mode of travel, and we’re making good progress.

"We appreciate that there has inevitably been some disruption to road users and we thank people for their patience and understanding while work is carried out.

"The project team has been working hard to mitigate the traffic congestion as much as possible – with a number of measures put in place – and this will continue throughout the construction of the scheme.

"We also urge drivers not to drive through red lights at the temporary traffic signals, as the system will automatically display red on all the signals for a short period of time.

"This is a safety feature to allow any such vehicle to clear the area but the knock on effect is that the extended time for holding traffic, only serves to impact on the queues – a few extra seconds on all red can have a big impact on flows.

“The town centre will very much be open for business during the work and we encourage people to continue visiting the town, but to consider using alternative routes if they can, or to use alternative modes of travel – including walking, cycling, public transport and park and ride.”