Invite to shoppers over roadworks
Tuesday 13th May 2008, 11:49AM BST.
Council bosses in Shrewsbury have issued a call to shoppers to take advantage of a “reduced traffic” town rather than avoiding it due to the diversions.
Shropshire County Council and Shrewsbury traders are encouraging people to visit and shop in the historic town throughout the traffic reduction trial, which is expected to be in place until May 31.
The aim of the trial was to encourage people to think about how they accessed the town to protect it for future generations to come, not to discourage them from visiting it.
The town’s car parks remain open as usual and Park and Ride buses are taking people from their out of town sites to the bus station, where access is available for everyone wishing to visit the town.
John Everall, Shropshire County Council’s cabinet member for environment and sustainability, said: “Shrewsbury is a wonderful town with many independent shops.
“We’d like to make it clear that the town is open for business as usual and we very much encourage you to visit and see what’s on offer.
“The trial provides a unique opportunity for you to visit the town with reduced traffic.”
Stacey Hill, from Oberon in Shrewsbury, added: “It is worth remembering that those great individual shops are still there, in the town centre, and their owners are really looking forward to seeing you.
“I don’t know of another town that has so many enthusiastic independent traders.”
Trade in the town has plummeted in recent weeks with shoppers staying away from the town centre and travelling to nearby Telford to avoid traffic queues.
But a campaign to bring people back into the centre has now been launched by shop owners and council bosses determined to attract business.
The number of shoppers using Shrewsbury’s two main shopping centres has fallen by up to 20,000 people a week since the controversial roadworks began.
By Rhea Parsons
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
“to protect it for future generations to come” That just about says it all. They don’t want a town they want a museum. and as for “The aim of the trial was to encourage people to think about how they accessed the town” Parachute anybody? because it will soon be the only option.
Report abuse
The Councillors need to get real. How do they think people will actually access the town, especially if they have small children or heavy shopping to do. If a private sector worker or individual had caused such chaos in the town they would have been sacked or arrested! Just because they work in the protected environment of the public sector means that they can dictate these moves and tell us that they are a great success, whilst everyone else tells them they are a dismal failure! I suggest that they may not be hailing them as such a success once their jobs have gone because they have not been elected back into office.
Report abuse
Welcome to Telford, maligned shoppers! We’ll gladly have your cash, thanks!
Report abuse
Have the councillors used the Park and Ride system since this trial began? It takes a minimum of 30 minutes from boarding the bus to reaching the Meole Brace Park & Ride car park. Waste of time. In half an hour I can be in Chester and enjoy my shopping.
Report abuse
Yes, in 30 minutes I can be parked up and shopping in Telford. It’s a no brainer really. I hope our future generations enjoy the ghost town that our beloved Council has created, with nothing to do during either the day OR the night time – thanks to the town centre residents committee clamping down on any noise (but that’s another story.)
Report abuse
Southshrops!!
Half an hour to Chester???
Careful…you’ll get a speeding ticket and then you’ll end up wishing you were in Shrewsbury!!
And, Stan, do people really do “heavy” shopping in the town centre nowadays? I don’t believe they do. But this is a shambles of a shopping centre but the world is more populated and the roads carry more cars so something must be done. Why anyone would want to drive into Shrewsbury town center amazes me. If it’s just to pick something up then use Frankwell or Abbey Foregate car parks or get it from your local shop.
Report abuse
Reduced traffic in town?? We live in Swan Hill and since traffic has been prevented from turning left onto Murivance when coming over Kingsland Bridge, in the morning our road has been turned into a mini race track, along with Cross Hill and St Johns Hill.
One day last week 2 of my work colleagues were very late into work as it had taken an hour to get from Wyle Cop to the Bellstone traffic lights. What a fiasco.
Report abuse
How about the councillors – including the chief executive – practising what they preach. They close off the council office car parks and use the public transport system to travel to and from their work at the offices each day. I’m sure they would soon get fed up with being sat on the Park and Ride for 30 or 40 minutes every morning.
Report abuse
I work in Shrewsbury, but don’t live there. It is such a fiasco to get to and from work each day(I am one of the lucky ones, my employer provides parking), I would not even think of venturing into Shrewsbury to shop. I have better things to do with my leisure time than sit in queues of traffic.
Report abuse
This is a disaster!!!!! I can not see how this trial is a success in any way shape or form. I sit on the Harlescott Park and Ride every morning. They are a fantastic bunch of drivers and I hear complaint after complaint made by passengers to the drivers. They have to put up with the grief from the public while the councillors come out with crap like “it is a success”. Anyone else out there who reads this PLEASE complain to the council. These poor Harlecott drivers are as affected as us and someone needs to speak up! We want to get back to sitting on the bus for 10 mins don’t we????
Report abuse
Well said chairman meow – but I suspect the councillors and the staff do not have this degree of faith in their own lunatic ideas – but I look forward to being proved wrong (won’t hold my breath mind !!)
Are you lot brave enough to take up this challenge or is hypocrisy truly alive in Shropshire!!
Report abuse
I feel really sorry for the delivery drivers, who have to get from one end of town to the other as their livelihood. What with this, the cost of fuel, and Parkright breathing down their necks I don’t know how they can make a living. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we’ll all be getting parking tickets while we’re sat in the queues!
Report abuse
i used to walk into shrewsbury down a cinder path near the red barn pub and cut across through kingsland and over k/bridge, this was 60 years ago though! if p & r buses are taking 30 mins and more no wonder people are shopping elsewhere. time to finish these roadworks and soon
Report abuse
What sound can you hear in centre of Shrewsbury now?
Is it the peace and quiet from having no traffic?
It isn’t the sound of shoppers feet on the pavements…
It is the sound of a town dying on it’s feet.
Councillors, get a grip – use the Park & Ride and be late into work as you can’t judge whether it will take half an hour or an hour and a half to get through Harlescott traffic. Sit on the usual Arriva bus and feel the fear when the drunks and skunks sit next to you and you don’t know what they’re going to do next.
Spend an hour or so getting to A&E at Copthorne with your sick child because the traffic is snarled up everywhere.
I have done all of these – then consider whether a few pavements are really worth it.
Report abuse
Yep that path still exists as I remember falling off my bike there last year into a load of nettles. Even including groping around for half my gear (no, not that type of ‘gear’) it was by far the quickest way into town. I’m not sure these days though that many people want to spend hours of their valuable time walking past charity shops, boarded up buildings and ‘antique’ litter bins so maybe they’ll go elsewhere. Meole Brace retail park seems to get busier and busier and I guess ultimately, the Town Centre Residents Association (motto: ssshh, how dare you come into our town and enjoy yourselves!!) will have the place all to themselves.
Report abuse
Well said ‘Idon’tbelieveit’. Once they’ve missed their train because they couldn’t get to the station despite leaving in plenty of time, or had to re-schedule missed vet’s appointments after being stuck in traffic with a very distressed, hot, sick cat in a carrier, they may get the idea. The pavements didn’t even need doing! Get it finished and leave our town alone.
Report abuse
You can bet that the coucillors and transport experts will say the one way scheme has been a rip roaring success and should be kept.The town is dying on its feet.I heard that the work could have been completed in 4 weeks by the contractors but the council wanted to extend the contract to 8 weeks to trail their ridiculous ‘ban the car’ scheme – if so it is outrageous!
Report abuse
So now I read that the council want to reduce parking fees on certain days. Surely they’re not trying to encourage more cars to come in, due to the fall in trade? The question I have now is how will people get to the car parks in the first place?
Report abuse
All vehicles should be banned from the town centre with the exception of buses, taxis and delivery vehicles. its not like you can park on the side of the road and pop into the shops anymore, and if you want to get to the hospital there is a perfectly good ring road (about 15 mins from harlescott to copthorne ).
I have a five year old son and he loves to walk round to the quarry or over the english bridge because its more interesting than being in a car, or maybe the council should start providing us with drive through shops so we never have to leave vehicles except when we return to our armchairs…..
Report abuse
this may be a silly suggestion but has any one tried to get some of the nearby closed railway stations opened, eg,hanwood,dorrington, upton magna or walcot, baschurch or hadnall etc. shrewsbury general station is not far from the town shops. with petrol fast approaching £1.25 a litre, it does seem expensive driving round the town looking for removed parking places, a sort of musical parking meters, and the competition just might make arriva modernise their decrepit bus fleet. iam sure the council are warming up for a congestion charge which will really send shoppers off to wellington telford and out of town shopping areas. let the train take the strain!!
Report abuse
surely the councillors cant have their head that deep in the sand as to say this ban the car scheme is a success.. It took me an hour and a half to complete a 40 minute return journey,, SABC then have the cheek to blame the bus company for operating an unreliable service…. Thankfully SABC is on borrowed time
Report abuse
Living and working abroad means that my visits to “my home town” are limited to once or twice a year. However on a recent visit, namely 2 weeks ago I was slightly surprised to see signs by the station saying road closed. No additional signage suggesting that the car parks were open etc.or that the shops were open as there had not been a gas leak or some other reason to close off the centre.
Having finally realised the town was open, in reality it seemed more like Sunday as opposed to a normal shopping day. Very few people about. One small independent retailer mentioned that their takings were down by half the usual amount and they said that many people they know go to Telford instead due to parking in Shrewsbury is becoming too difficult and impratical. One of their suppliers did not deliver as they could not work out how to get to their shop.
On each visit I make, there appear to be more and more vacant shops and the quality of the shops that there are appears to be declining. I beg that whoever dreamt up this piece of brillance thinks about the ramifications of their actions BEFORE taking them as opposed to doing it and hoping all will be well.
Report abuse
i hope that when the road works are completed in shrewsbury town centre that the suggestion of keeping the town closed to through traffic is only a joke.i would suggest to fellow drivers that if a permanent stop is put into place that we all abandon our cars in the road until a suitable alternative is put into place.
Report abuse
‘Whats the problem’ , well said . I am going to motorise my armchair so I dont even have to get out of it.Armchair access is easy in most of the shops and I am going to reset my tv remote so it controls traffic lights straight in and straight out, fantastic!.Get rid of the traffic in town and open more burger bars.Happy days !!
Report abuse
Congestion charge !! Now theres a good idea!!
Oh and an escalator up pride hill, kills Blairs legs carrying me up there! x
Report abuse
Oh come on Gordie! Give us a lift up ere cocker!!!
Report abuse
Julie
Why should town centre roads be used for “through” traffic?? There are perfectly decent roads around the town! The through traffic is what causes congestion on smithfield road, st. michaels st etc. People are just to idle to walk or go the long way round! Traffic going into the town centre should just go to car parks and back out again and nowhere else!
Report abuse
I think I must be dreaming – I have just seen a group of workmen with a piece of string across measuring the distance between the string and the road surface – traffic is stopped (it is Friday lunchtime) and they move up the road a few feet and repeat this action.
Is it a new game to while away the hours before their next tea break, is it simply to add to the congestion so more fuel is burned and so more VAT paid to the government, is it so park right can ticket the statioary vehicles?
Or was I actually dreaming?
Answers on the website please??
Report abuse
exactly what’s the problem and devil. What town of any worth has traffic through the middle like Shrewsbury. Crossing by the square is ridiculous. People shouldn’t go through the middle of town if they’re not stopping there and unbeliveably people do – are they mad?
Report abuse
well said the devil, feet were designed for walking and not pressing pedals
Report abuse
The only reason people drive through town is to look at totty like Hannah Taylor from Zebra!!
Report abuse
julie, how could you possibly abandon your your car in the street when it seems you couldn’t do with out it for anymore than 5 minutes
Report abuse
clearly SABC intends their legacy to Shropshire when they are finally got rid of, is to destroy Shrewsbury.
Bit like the scorched earth policy that Saddam Hussain attempted in the first gulf war, on his retreat from Kuwait burned all he could, on the basis that if he couldn’t have it no one could.
Report abuse
I work in the centre of Shrewsbury and dread the drive to and from work!! A trip which used to take me 15 minutes can now take up to an hour!! Thanks to this “wonderful” (??) initiative some shops will soon have to close as not only will they be losing customers, they will be losing staff too!! Who in their right mind wants to sit in traffic for hours unnecessarily when there are other better shopping venues to visit in the vicinity with much better road layouts and parking facilities?? It is a nightmare!! If the council is trying to improve the town centre they should perhaps ask themselves 2 questions, Is trade suffering and have carbon emissions in the town increased since all the changes have been put in place?!! Perhaps I’m ignorant but to me there is no improvement there!?? I just hope all these comments do not fall on deaf ears and someone with a little common sense tries to turn things around before it is too late and Shrewsbury becomes a Ghost Town!!!!!
Report abuse
i do hope these roadworks are sorted by june when i visit gods own county town. i do hope the towns decrepit fleet of p and r buses will last until i arrive in town
Report abuse
I do not drive through the town centre but I do drive into the town & use either the multi storey or Frankwell car parks on occasion- why should I be villified for this?
I’m sorry, Harlescott to Copthorne in 15 minutes? I can’t get down mount pleasant or Whitchurch road in that time!
Report abuse