Joy as road off main route list
Road safety campaigners were celebrating today after their 34-year fight to stop lorries trundling through their villages on the north Shropshire border took a major step forward.
Road safety campaigners were celebrating today after their 34-year fight to stop lorries trundling through their villages on the north Shropshire border took a major step forward.
The A525 road between Whitchurch and Newcastle Under Lyme has been taken off the list of primary routes by the Government. It means the stretch between Shropshire and Staffordshire via Cheshire will no longer appear on sat nav systems or new road atlases as a primary route.
The move should see traffic diverted away from the area and villages like Woore, Broughall and Audlem.
Campaigners have been calling for Department of Transport ministers to slash the amount of heavy traffic using the road fearing it is only a matter of time before people or property are damaged by lorries.
Mike Hill, vice chairman of Audlem Parish Council, said today: "I'm absolutely delighted with this news.
"The campaign to get something done about the A525 goes back to 1976 I believe.
"Various people have been chipping away at it for years.
"It was HGVs people were worried about and over the last few years it got worse with all the eastern European lorry drivers coming through and not really knowing the area."