Traffic shake-up plans for Oswestry

A task force looking at the future of the Shropshire market town is investigating how the traffic system could be altered. Parking de-regulation is also under discussion.

Future Oswestry is a group made up of representatives from Shropshire Council, Oswestry Town Council and the Oswestry Business Improvement District.

It is looking at different areas of how the town can change and develop, including retail.

Councillor Steve Charmley, from Shropshire Council, said meetings had been held to identify ways to improve the vitality of the town.

He said there had been several think tanks over the years including the Oswestry 20/20 group and the Transport and Townscape group – and that their ideas were being fed into the Future Oswestry discussion.

Change

Two decades ago there was a major change in the traffic routes in the town which included making Cross Street part-pedestrianised.

But Councillor Charmley said Future Oswestry wanted to consult with the community on whether it should remain closed or be re-opened.

He said: “Church Street is also an area that has problems with parking allowed on one side of a two-way traffic street.

“We need to look at how we are feeding traffic through the town centre and how we can improve it.”

Parking restrictions are also coming under the spotlight.

“We want a review of the traffic regulations to see if they are right for today’s world,” Councillor Charmley said.

“The regulations were set 40 years ago and we need to look at whether some aspects need to be altered to respect the modern world, for instance, do we need double yellow lines everywhere.

“We have a seven-day retail offer in our towns today.”