U-turn on Shrewsbury roadworks over post office fears
Planned roadworks on a key Shrewsbury road will not go ahead next week after concerns were raised about access to a post office.
A traffic management programme was set to begin on Shrewsbury's Abbey Foregate and its junction with Monkmoor Road while the pavement was re-surfaced.
But Abbey Foregate postmistress Caroline Jones said the scheme would cause disruption to her business and make it difficult for customers to access the service.
She said two previous programmes of roadworks had both caused disruption to customers, and raised concerns that people would struggle to park outside the post office with the four-way lights in place.
The council has now done a U-turn on the plans and said it would instead carry out the work on Sundays, while the post office is closed.
Gary Parton, Shropshire Council’s traffic manager, said: “Having considered concerns raised about available access to Abbey Foregate Post Office we have agreed to temporarily suspend work to resurface the pavement on Abbey Foregate that was scheduled to begin on Tuesday 27 August.
Urgently required
"However, the work is still urgently required and a revised programme of works operation utilising Sunday hours when the post office is closed will now be agreed and communicated as soon as possible.
“It’s important to stress that the work planned for next week was to include a lane closure, not a road closure as reported, and the plans were communicated in line with our agreed protocols.
"Advance warning signs were displayed at the sites, and letters were delivered to local businesses – including the post office. We had also arranged for ‘open as usual’ signage to be installed outside the post office, and use pedestrian marshals to assist and advise passers-by. These arrangements will be in place once again for the rescheduled work.
“We have contacted Caroline at the post office to inform her of this change of plan, and to reassure her that all reasonable steps will be taken to ensure the required works take place in a timely manner, safely and with minimum disruption to her business.”
