283-home Shrewsbury scheme 'is unsustainable' unless North West Relief Road goes ahead - councillor

Cornovii Homes, Shropshire Council’s wholly owned homebuilding company, submitted plans for the scheme last December. The development, near Welshpool Road, would include a mix of one- to four-bedroom properties, with 57 (20 per cent) being affordable homes and apartments.

A total of 2.8 hectares of land would be retained to accommodate a variety of open space and ecological habitats, while the developers say sensitively designed sustainable drainage systems have been incorporated.

The scheme – which could go to a planning committee in February – is part of the wider Shrewsbury West Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE) which is expected to deliver around 700 new homes, nine to 13 hectares of employment land and enhancements to the park-and-ride facility.

Harpreet Rayet, managing director at Cornovii Homes, and Tim Evans, a director at the firm’s agent, Avison Young, presented the project to Shrewsbury Town Counci’s Planning Committee on Tuesday (November 11).

“The key objective of the company is not only to make a financial return to the council, but also to act as a regeneration agent to the local authority to help it tackle some of these more difficult sites,” said Mr Rayet, “and also to meet the housing demand in Shropshire.

“We’ve been working on this site since 2020 in various guises, and are now coming forward with a revised, updated application.”

Mr Evans explained that discussions were held with Shropshire Council officers in February, with the scheme subsequently revised. It was then presented to Design Midlands the following November before the application was formally submitted.

“Between then and March 2025, we’ve received a number of consultation responses from statutory consultees which raised queries and raised comments about certain elements – like the affordability housing mix and the composition of the units on the site.” said Mr Evans.

“Around that time, there were changes to the NPPF [National Planning Policy Framework] and the Environment Agency published some revised flood risk maps which created issues within the site.

“Cornovii took the decision to revise the layout and address those issues.”

Councillor Jon Tandy, who is a Shropshire councillor representing Bicton Heath, said the plans were initially drawn up when the NWRR was going to be built.

“But it’s not going to be built now,” said Councillor Tandy.

“So all the traffic that was going to go onto the NWRR will go on Welshpool Road. We’ve got Lidl going in there, we’ve got the park-and-ride already there, the Co-op. We’ve got everything there, but it’s unsustainable.”

Councillor Tandy also said that Oxon Pool near the touring and holiday home park is already full and cannot take any more water.

In response, Mr Evans said: “At the moment, there is no decision on whether the NWRR is going ahead. That has not been confirmed at this point.

“So, when we’re doing engagement with the highways department and National Highways, we need to use the modelling that we, as an organisation, have been told is occurring.

“Until we get that firm decision whether the NWRR is occurring or there is an alternative, or there is not likely to be a stategic infrastructure, we have to go on with what we’ve been told. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

“I believe there is work going on within the local authority. There was a previous scheme called the Oxon Link Road [OLR]. In terms of contributions to this scheme, it will be in line with all developments who have had to make contributions to the NWRR or the OLR.

“What we can’t do is predict what will happen if the local authority decide not to move forward with the OLR.

“The design panel raised that the scheme should function in both a NWRR world and a non-NWRR world.

“We have designed a scheme that works in a NWRR world which would improve drainage within the general area. But there is also another strategy that we would have that, if it doesn’t happen, that it would drain to different catchments.”