'Draw your own conclusions' urges transport boss amid criticism over relief road 'benefits'

But Councillor Dan Morris, the authority's cabinet member for highways, says the traffic modelling has been validated by National Highways, and encouraged people to read the documents for themselves on the planning portal.

Emma Bullard, from the campaign group, said: "The claims about 64 per cent reduction in traffic flows in The Mount, Smithfield Road and Chester Street are highly misleading. The council’s own traffic modelling shows that the actual reductions on those streets (the main area where traffic will reduce in the short term) will be much lower (around 24 per cent compared to the do nothing scenario).

"The 64 per cent quoted presumably only refers to journeys where cars are starting at one end of this route and going all the way through. As hardly any cars do this at present, the reduction is meaningless and bears little relation to reality. What the council doesn’t want to tell residents is that, on average, the North West Relief Road (NWRR) will only reduce journey times across Shrewsbury by a few minutes at most. It’s a 'benefit' that will be rapidly eroded by induced traffic: extra journeys that will rapidly fill up any space created on the road system. Meanwhile the council stays silent about areas like Berwick Road where its own data says traffic levels will more than triple, nor the increase in congestion generated at A5 Churncote roundabout and the western end of Harlescott Road. The council is cherry-picking data and trying to pull the wool over residents’ eyes."

She added: "The planning system is designed to provide an objective balance between harmful impacts and benefits, but the council has decided to present only a list of questionable benefits that many residents know are pure fantasy. What about the damage it will do? - increased greenhouse gas emissions, noise, a huge eyesore across Shrewsbury’s green wedge, more car journeys, centuries-old oaks cut down? Do they think we’re dense?

"It's ironic that the one ‘benefit’ that the council doesn’t like to talk about is how the NWRR will help house builders generate higher profits. The NWRR will open up large areas of Shrewsbury’s unique 'green wedge' for developers. This will create thousands of new homes along the NWRR’s route. All these houses will be adding to the number of vehicles on the roads, causing yet more traffic misery across Shrewsbury.

"Once the new housing developments are built, the single carriage NWRR and Battlefield Link/Sundorne Roundabout will be clogged up with the rising traffic levels and we’ll be back to square one.

"The NWRR isn’t a vision of Shrewsbury’s future, it’s a road to ruin presided over by a zombie council administration that has no idea how to fix the problems the town faces."

In response, Mr Morris said: “The note, published by Shropshire Council as applicant for the scheme, around the wider benefits of the Shrewsbury North West Relief Road, draws on a range of information already in the public domain.

“The key sources for this, primarily the original Outline Business Cases for the Oxon Link Road and Shrewsbury North West Relief Road, have already undergone full and thorough scrutiny and verification by both councillors and external funders including the Department for Transport.

“Matters around the traffic modelling outputs have also been validated as part of the current planning application by National Highways, and the tightly defined amount of housing and employment land development directly relating to the delivery of the road is captured in the current Local Plan.

“All supporting business case information cited has undergone full public consultation previously, where the range of concerns raised by Better Shrewsbury Transport have been addressed comprehensively. As Shrewsbury North West Relief Road remains an open planning application, this information is available publicly as part of the planning process. If anyone wishes to review these and comment further, they can do so through the planning portal using application reference 21/00924/EIA.”