Poll result: Second entrance IS needed at Shrewsbury's Meole Brace Retail Park say Star readers
A second entrance is needed for Shrewsbury's Meole Brace Retail Park, according to hundreds of Shropshire Star readers.
More than 2,000 people took part in a poll asking whether a new entrance is needed.
In an overwhelming response, 96 per cent of people who responded to the poll said they believed a new entrance is needed for the park.
Only four per cent were satisfied with the current situation, where the park is accessed off Hereford Road.
Shropshire Council highways officials had suggested that a new access for the site was needed as part of their response to a planning application for a new Sports Direct shop.
The shop would take up a piece of land which has been suggested as an alternative entrance.
In an effort to alleviate the highways concerns the park's owners have suggested several changes to the roads on the site, although they do not include a new entrance.
Under the proposal they will remove speed bumps and introduce a new two-way entrance and exit off the roundabout for Next and Boots.
An extra lane is also being added to the Hereford Lane exit to the park.
Responding to the application earlier this year, Mark Wooton, Shropshire Council’s north & central manager for developing highways, wrote to authority’s planning department to over concerns that the traffic problems at the retail park would reduce the benefits created by the multi-million pound changes to Meole Brace’s ‘hamburger’ roundabout.
Mr Wooton said the mitigation measures planned as part of the development did not address the congestion issues at the park and that a secondary access or exit “should be considered in the longer term”.
The concerns about the traffic impact could lead planning officials to reject the proposal for the new store, which would also stop Outfit from opening on the park, in the building currently occupied by Sports Direct.
In an effort to sway planning officials Phil Wooliscroft of Croft Transport Solutions, on behalf of the park’s owners, La Salle, has suggested two new measures.
Two large speed bumps will be removed to speed up traffic, and an access on the roundabout closest to the M&S store will have its current one-way access changed to a two-way entrance.
One of the speed bumps removed - near to McDonald’s - also includes a zebra crossing which will be taken away.
