Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury A5 roadwork misery to last until March

Major roadworks that have frustrated motorists in Shropshire for months will drag on until the middle of March, it has been revealed .

Published

The £8.4 million scheme at Shrewsbury's Emstrey and Preston Boats islands, which was scheduled to finish in December, has been delayed due to safety issues, according to the Highways Agency.

It is the second setback after highways officials pledged work would be finished in time for Christmas but later announced it would not be completed until January or February "at the very latest".

Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczysnki said further delays to the scheme were unacceptable.

He said: "My constituents have been making it clear they are not prepared to continue putting up with this disruption up to the middle of March. It needs to be carried out and completed as soon as possible, ideally by the end of this month."

Initial problems had been caused by poor weather and technical issues with the commissioning of traffic signal control components.

Today Alistair Harris, spokesman for the Highways Agency, said: "The safety of drivers and our road workers is always our utmost priority. In the case of the Emstrey and Preston islands, safety issues on our working site have meant we have had to delay some aspects of our work.

"Of course this is frustrating, as we had hoped to finish by December. However, we cannot allow our subcontractors to work in a dangerous environment, and nor can we put public safety at risk by rushing to reopen the road. We are on track to complete this scheme by mid-March."

The work at the two islands started in June and has caused delays of up to 30 minutes for motorists. There have also been several overnight road and island closures.

The project was named number eight in a list of Britain's top 10 worst congestion blackspots caused by roadworks, by traffic information provider Inrix.

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