Council has 'obligation' to dual A5 as highways boss says it could be next major scheme

Councillor Dean Carroll, Shropshire Council's cabinet member for highways, says the authority has to consider dualling the A5 between Shrewsbury and the Welsh border at Chirk, to address serious concerns over the safety of the road.

He also believes the scheme would help boost economic growth by cutting congestion, and improve transport links between the West Midlands and North Wales, the Republic of Ireland and North West England.

“It’s something like the North West Relief Road that’s been talked about for decades,” said Councillor Carroll, who took over the highways portfolio on the authority’s cabinet in September.

“The MPs – Owen Paterson and Daniel Kawczynski – have both been very keen on it and there is a lot of public support.

“There has been support from the Oswestry area and from the Welsh as well, because it will make things a whole lot quicker-moving.

“In the long-term, we have got to explore whether it would be a project that provides the benefits that have been talked about.

“We need to quantify the benefits and the challenges, before we can actually say, ‘right, let’s write up the business case and go to the Government and ask for funding’.

“But it’s such a major part of Shropshire’s transport network that it would be negligent of us not to explore that and not to look at it.”

Councillor Carroll said it would be one of the two “next big projects” for the council to turn its attention to once the North West Relief Road is under construction, along with major safety improvements to the A49 in the south of the county.

The long-awaited Pant-Llanymynech bypass is also moving forward, with an outline business case currently being prepared.

Councillor Carroll said it “makes sense” to keep the momentum up with a pipeline of projects to take advantage of the expertise within the council’s current highways team and consultants it works with, rather than take a “stopping and starting” approach.

He added: “We wouldn’t even be looking at these if we didn’t think that the business cases were strong and the reasons were good enough, but we need to make sure in our preparatory work for the A5 and A49 that they stack up.”

The main driving force behind both schemes is the need to improve safety and reduce accidents, Councillor Carroll said.

“It is dangerous trying to get from one side of the A5 to the other at any time of day.

“We have got some real pinch points – Montford Bridge, Shotatton crossroads, the turning for the Queen’s Head – which are all very dangerous if you are trying to get onto or across the A5.

“The first principle has got to be ‘how do we make the road fit for the next 40, 50 or 100 years?’, particularly at those pinch points but along the whole route.”

Councillor Carroll said the North West Relief Road would bring “huge benefits to Shrewsbury and the villages around it”, adding: “If we are doing that, it’s only right that we look at other major routes to see how we can improve safety, improve quality of life and improve capacity on the network that helps people get where they need to go and also helps businesses.

“Businesses need certainty and you can’t have certainty with the A5 because you never know when it’s going to be slow-moving or at a stop.

“There are lots of reasons why we at least need to look at it.”