Shropshire Star

Renewed call for A5 work at Oswestry after crash

Renewed calls have been made to improve the safety of one of Shropshire's major roads after a crash closed it for more than seven hours.

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A driver had to be cut from the wreckage of his car following the crash on Thursday, which happened just before 5pm on the A5 south of Oswestry, close to the British Ironworks complex at Aston.

Original diversions through country lanes were closed when a lorry broke down on one of the lanes. Traffic then faced diversions through Queens Head and Whittington or Maesbury until the road reopened at 12.30am on Friday. Oswestry mayor Peter Cherrington said while the crash was unfortunate, he hoped it would mark a renewed drive to get the road dualled from the Wolf's Head roundabout near Nesscliffe to Chirk Bank.

Earlier this week Shropshire MPs Daniel Kawczynski and Owen Paterson, as well as Councillor Keith Barrow, leader of Shropshire Council, lobbied the Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin to make improvements to the "totally inadequate" A5 – including making the stretch on which the crash happened into a dual carriageway.

Mr Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury, said the meeting had been "constructive", adding that the minister had agreed to ask Highways England for a primary costing for dualling the A5.

Councillor Cherrington said he hoped this was the first step towards finally seeing the road dualled.

"It would be nice if we had the dual carriageway sooner rather than later," he said. "I'm able to go to the top of Scotland and the bottom of Cornwall on dual carriageways, with the exception of Chirk to Nesscliffe. We need this road to be improved."

In the period 1991 to 2015 there have been 48 fatalities on the single carriageway stretch of road, 308 serious casualties and 1,081 slight casualties.

Since 1993 traffic has increased on the road by 33 per cent in a 24-hour period, rising from 36,807 vehicles to 49,045.

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