What's happening with Shropshire's Oxon Link Road plans - we take a closer look
Now the North West Relief Road (NWRR) has been officially cancelled, attention turns to see if the Oxon Link Road (OLR) can get off the ground and improve traffic congestion around Shrewsbury.
However, the chances of anything concrete being brought forward any time soon looks incredibly unlikely.
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Shropshire Council officially cancelled the chaotic relief road project last week, bringing to an end years of uncertainty over the costly scheme.
But the OLR, which was part of the scheme, has not yet been scrapped, with the authority saying it would make a decision at a later date.
When that may be is unlikely to be any time soon, with the council saying it’s even more complex than the NWRR.
The proposed OLR will run between the A5 Churncote roundabout and Holyhead Road. It also forms part of the Shrewsbury West Sustainable Urban Extenstion (SUE) at Bicton Heath, to the north of Welshpool Road.
The plan, for 283 homes, has been drawn up by the council’s own housing company, Coronovii.
However, National Highways has told Shropshire Council not to grant planning permission for another three months, while it awaits more information.
It said that that without the relief road, it needs to assess whether Churncote roundabout will be able to cope with the amount of extra traffic.
“In the absence of the NWRR being implemented, we need to re-examine whether the Churncote roundabout would have sufficient capacity to accommodate the traffic demands associated with the SUE,” said a National Highways spokesperson.
“Furthermore, the original work for the western SUE included the construction of Oxon Link Road which ran from a revised A5 Churncote to B4380 Holyhead Road.
“This was subsequently added in to the full NWRR. We therefore require that the consultant re-assess the impacts of the SUE on the Churncote Roundabout on the basis that the NWRR scheme and Oxon Link Road is no longer proceeding.”
Councillor Alex Wagner, deputy leader at Shropshire Council, said the OLR is more complicated because it’s directly connected to Section 106 agreements.
“The business case around that is even more complex, but it’s more directly Shropshire Council-led, there’s no DfT (Department for Transport) involvement,” he said.
“We’re going to look at those options, but that will take a significant period of time before we bring anything forward.”
