Key Messages about the proposed Shrewsbury North West Road
Shropshire Council is planning to spend at least £200 million on a road through the unspoiled countryside near Shrewsbury. The council says that this will reduce congestion in the town centre and thus ‘improve Shrewsbury as a place in which to live, work and invest’. We disagree and have provided ten reasons why.
The proposed Shrewsbury NW road is not an effective or sustainable way to improve transport or reduce congestion in and around the town and will have significant impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, wildlife, air, noise and water quality and the council’s budgets for other more important projects. BeST has objected to the planning application on the following grounds:
- There’s a climate emergency: One of Shropshire Council’s key objectives for the road is to help tackle the climate emergency, but the council’s environmental statement shows that it achieves the opposite: building the road will lead to 48,000 tonnes of extra CO2 emissions. Even taking the council’s approach of optimistically allowing for some savings when the road is in use (i.e. ignoring the fact that new roads generate more journeys), this only reduces emissions by 359 tonnes per annum. The recent report to Parliament from the UK’s Climate Change Committee says that the UK transport sector is not on track to achieve the required reductions for net zero and that “investment in roads should be contingent on analysis justifying how they contribute to the UK’s pathway to Net Zero”. It’s hard to see how Shropshire Council can plough on with plans for this carbon emitting road in the circumstances. The planning documents offer no means of offsetting the predicted emissions and conclude that there is a ‘Significant Adverse’ Climate Change impact from the proposal. But they then state that, as these figures are insignificant compared to the UK’s 5 year carbon budget, they can be ignored! We estimate that to absorb these emissions within ten years the council would need to plant around 1.4 million extra trees – and keep them alive. Shropshire Council has declared a Climate Emergency and signed up to becoming Net Zero. It should be focussing its endeavours in delivering on these priority policy areas, not wasting time and energy promoting a major scheme that results in major increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
- It will put the town’s water supply at risk: The council’s design includes building a roundabout over the inner Source Protection Zone for Severn Trent Water’s Shelton borehole. The council’s own policy says that development in these areas is not encouraged due to the risk of pollution. Roundabouts are the most dangerous type of junction for serious pollution spillages, especially when they are linked to 60 mph roads like the one the council wants to build. However, the council has not properly investigated the alternatives. Keeping the source safe in future will depend on the council maintaining the complex drainage system but we can see that the council can’t even properly maintain its existing roads. The Environment Agency and Severn Trent Water have significant concerns about this risk and are not satisfied with the information provided by the council.
- It will destroy important local green space and nature: The road will be built through Shrewsbury’s ‘Green Wedge’. This has been identified in the Big Town Plan as a unique and important feature of Shrewsbury that brings nature into the heart of the town. Shropshire Wildlife Trust has objected to the application and says that the road “has guaranteed enormous environmental costs” and will run right next to and cause air pollution damage to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (Hencott Pool). It will also damage an ancient woodland and BAP Priority Wet Woodland as well as impacting multiple priority species. The council’s plans show that it plans to cut down nine veteran oak trees (i.e. centuries old) including the fantastic 550 year old Darwin Oak and cause damage to dozens more. The government’s planning rules say that these trees are ‘irreplaceable’ and should only be cut down in ‘wholly exceptional’ circumstances. As outlined below, we don’t think that the council has made a case to say that the need for the proposed road is ‘wholly exceptional’. Meanwhile, CPRE has identified the landscape in this area as being particularly valuable and the construction of an ugly concrete viaduct across the flood plain and into the lovely Shelton Rough area will have a devastating impact on this local asset that so many people have come to appreciate during the pandemic. Yet the planning application contains no clear visualisations of the 670 m viaduct across the valley upstream of the town – is this because the council is ashamed of the horrendous visual impact this will have?
- It won’t reduce congestion: The council claims that the road will reduce congestion in the town centre but this is not true. The council’s own modelling shows the road would have a limited effect on congestion in the town centre, whilst there might be a reduction of around one car in four in peak flows on Smithfield Rd St Michaels St, Castle St, High St etc will see no perceptible improvement. Meanwhile traffic will increase on many other roads, including Harlescott Lane, Berwick Rd, (A528 to Wem), English Bridge and the A5 by Churncote. Berwick Rd will become the shortest route into town which will place considerable strain on the junction with Coton Hill but the Council’s model does not think this would be a problem at all. There are also serious doubts as to whether these figures adequately allow for the new traffic that is ‘created’ when new roads are built and the planning documents offer no means of locking in any short term benefits that might be achieved. There is well established evidence that, rather than reduce congestion, new roads actually create more traffic and fail to deliver the economic benefits claimed (e.g. CPRE, 2017).
- There are better, cheaper and more sustainable alternatives. The council refuses to properly investigate the potential of well established alternatives for reducing traffic congestion throughout the town (such as walking, cycling and public transport). Herefordshire Council carried out a transport study which showed that alternatives could achieve more than the proposed Hereford bypass at a quarter of the price. These sustainable alternatives provide multiple other benefits in terms of health, community cohesion, reduced accidents. Increased cycling alone could reduce vehicle traffic across the whole of the town by 15%. The council has reduced its funding for buses and the Park & Ride scheme and annual numbers of people using P&R have dropped by a quarter of a million over the last decade (over 2000 people per day) thus making congestion in the town worse. Meanwhile the Big Town Plan Masterplan has outlined exactly how these alternative measures could work in Shrewsbury but the council has not included this in its traffic modelling – is this because it doesn’t want us to see how effective this could be? Increased remote working, assisted by the pandemic, will also have a huge impact on traffic levels but this is not considered.
- It will increase traffic noise throughout the town: The road is upwind of the town and has a raised bridge across the Severn that will allow sound to travel down the river into the town. The noise assessment submitted by the council has identified many properties that will be affected (particularly around Bicton and the top end of The Mount). People living near the recently opened Newtown bypass have found that, contrary to the claims of the road designers, they are now suffering extra noise and have seen the value of their houses reduced. The design of the North West road has changed significantly since the public consultation and the viaduct now proposed will disrupt the peace and quiet of the whole area upstream of Shrewsbury – an area that was an invaluable space for recreation for the local population during the pandemic. The noise assessment also doesn’t consider the impact of the road on people using the area for recreation or on the hundreds of new houses in the recently approved Bicton Extension area. Interestingly the developers of that scheme have objected to the NW road application due to the removal of a planned footbridge that would give residents access to the countryside beyond the road – even though the council claims the road is essential for the development!
- A new road will mean more greenfield, car dependent development: Developers will see the new road as an ideal opportunity to open up the ‘Green Wedge’ for housing. Already the draft Local Plan has identified land to the west of Ellesmere Road for 450 houses if the road is built and it will also open up the area to the north of this to thousands more houses. Meanwhile there are other areas nearby that are currently ruled out due to transport constraints but will quickly appear in the development plan once the road is built. These schemes will add more congestion to the roads that the road scheme is supposedly trying to alleviate but this has not been fully explored in the traffic modelling.
- We need cleaner air now: Air pollution in parts of Shrewsbury is at illegal levels now – and the problem is likely to be much worse than the council admits because it refuses to monitor air pollution properly. This road does not address the fundamental problem that we have too many cars driving around the narrow streets of Shrewsbury. The modelling that has been done for the planning application shows the nitrogen dioxide levels by the railway station would still be above the legal limit after the road is built. Air quality will not improve until we invest in measures that encourage people to use public transport, walking and cycling to access the town. The Big Town Plan Masterplan shows how this could work and its proposals are not dependent on the North West Road. All roads have impacts on the environment and people’s health -as well as injuries and deaths from crashes, there is noise and pollution from roads which already affects 94% of the land area of Great Britain. Recent research has found that wind born microplastic (mainly from car tyres and brake pads) are a bigger source of ocean pollution than rivers, and this problem will get worse with electric cars because they are heavier.
- It will increase inequality: A quarter of our population does not have access to a car: this is generally the young, the very old, the socially deprived and other vulnerable groups. The council is diverting funds away from transport modes that support these groups (buses, walking and cycling) towards car users. The council is also spending a huge amount on Shrewsbury to the detriment of communities across the rest of Shropshire.
- The road design does not consider other road users properly: The road will cut across the north and west of the town and is designed for driving at 60mph, but the junctions are roundabouts which would be terrifying for anyone planning to cross using a bike and do not comply with the design standards that the council signed up to last year. Meanwhile, several of the key footpaths that will be cut by the road will not have dedicated crossings and instead will involve long diversions. To compensate the council has proposed a footpath/cycle path running next to the road but who will want to walk/cycle along a path right next to a 60mph road?
The cost of the road has soared due to inflation since the business case was made in 2017 (£87M) and is now estimated to cost over £200M. The government has said that the road will now be ‘fully funded’ by funds released from the cancellation of HS2. However, it is unclear what this actually means and the Dept. for Transport has refused to confirm to put down any commitment in writing. We think that when the time comes we will find that ‘fully funded’ means far from what it is being presented as meaning and Shropshire Council will have to sell off assets and take on hugely expensive loans to pay for it.
It will also divert money from developers that was supposed to be for local communities: The only sources of money the council will have will be to sell off local assets. More likely, they will need to raid the Community Infrastructure Levy funds. These are levies on all new house building in the county which should be spent helping local communities across Shropshire to adjust to the needs of a growing population e.g. by providing new school places and community facilities.
If you would like any more details on any of these issues please email bettershrewsburytransport1@gmail.com