Nine months of roadworks on Shrewsbury's Pride Hill set to begin

Cadent Gas dug up six sections of the street earlier this month for "essential gas maintenance", and when the company finishes the work, contractors will begin the new work as part of the Shrewsbury Integrated Transport Package (SITP).

From next month, contractors will begin working to replace the paving, street furniture, and remove one tree on Pride Hill in sections.

There will be three feature sections of the pavement by the Darwin Shopping Centre, Butcher Row and Pride Hill Shopping Centre.

The news comes as more than nine weeks of disruption to Wyle Cop have come to an end.

The road was closed to drivers travelling out of town for the duration, while it was completely closed overnight for five nights last month.

The footway and kerbs were re-paved with Yorkstone slabs and the road was resurfaced.

The work is the latest stage of the Shrewsbury Integrated Transport Package - the £12 million scheme which has already seen major revamps of Meole Brace, Sutton Park and Reabrook roundabouts, Coleham Head and the English Bridge gyratory.

Matt Johnson, strategic transport and contracts manager for Shropshire Council, said "Unless we spend the money when we're given it we lose the money.

"We have five years to do the range of works."

Mr Johnson said that the work on Pride Hill will start in a couple of week's time.

Site office

He said: "We're going to have a site office on Pride Hill for people to pop in and ask questions.

"On Wyle Cop we've taken out all of the concrete and the entrance to the NCP car park has been done.

"We haven't fundamentally redesigned it, we wanted to link up the English Bridge works as soon as you walk over the bridge from the Abbey Church it links the area to the town centre."

Mr Johnson said that contractors halted work on Reabrook roundabout last year when Rod Stewart performed at Shrewsbury Town's football ground.

He said: "When Rod Stewart decided to come to Shrewsbury at relatively short notice we stopped the work on Reabrook roundabout for the night at a cost of £20,000-odd pounds."

Councillor Steve Davenport, cabinet member for highways, added: "We've had good comments about the work so far.

"I want to work on the park and ride to make it even easier for people to do that and the hospital to bring into the park and ride which will ease the parking congestion."

Over the last two years there have been 3,209 separate emergency works in the Shrewsbury area.

Gary Parton, traffic manager for Shropshire Council, said the team at the council manage the roadworks to minimise disruption.

He said: "We've seen a lot of housing development in Shrewsbury over the years. Development goes hand-in-hand with the infrastructure.

"Our job is to make sure that the work is programmed effectively to try and minimise disruption. Where we can we try and make sure major works don't impact events.

"Sometimes you can plan as much as you like but you do have emergency work pop up.

"Everything is essential, all the work is essential for one reason or another."