Road safety fears over Ellesmere housing plans

Town councillors say local roads are not suitable for the extra traffic that would be generated by the housing on the Old Railway Station in the town centre.

Planning officers are recommending that Shropshire councillors grant detailed planning permission to convert the station, a listed building, into seven flats with outline permission for 58 homes on the disused railway yard.

This would by subject to the applicant making an affordable housing contribution and £10,000 for highway works.

Access to the land is via Brownlow Road.

Objections from the town council say while it is recognised that this is a potentially suitable brownfield site for housing, the proposed access to the site from Brownlow Road is wholly unsuitable for the numbers of vehicles that would be associated with a development of this size.

"There have been recent incidents in Brownlow Road, a residential road with on street parking, of speeding, a parked vehicle being hit and a child being knocked off his bike ," the council says.

It says it has been in discussions with Shropshire Highways to look at ways of minimising through-traffic along the road, which is sometimes used as a 'rat run' by drivers trying to avoid queues at the nearby Trimpley Street pinch-point.

Six residents have also written objecting to the scheme and the council's education department says the development could impact on future schooling requirements in the area with a likely shortage of school places by 2022.

The application will go to the north planning committee at the Shirehall on Tuesday.