Shrewsbury 280 homes plan held up by concerns from highways bosses over cancelled North West Relief Road
The collapse of Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road project could cause headaches for one of Shropshire Council's major housing plans.
The council officially cancelled the chaotic relief road project last week, bringing to an end years of uncertainty over the costly scheme.
But, the Oxon Link Road (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.
But the decision may have a knock-on effect for housing plans, which were prepared with the relief road in mind.
One of those is a proposal for a large site, known as a 'sustainable urban extension' (SUE), at Bicton Heath in Shrewsbury, to the north of Welshpool Road.
The plan, for 283 homes, has been drawn up by the council's own housing company Cornovii.
One of the organisations consulted on the plan is National Highways, because of the potential impact on the road network - specifically the nearby A5, one of the county's busiest roads.
In a letter National Highways has told the council not to grant planning permission for the plan for another three months, while it awaits more information.
It said that without the relief road it needs to assess whether Churchcote Roundabout on the A5 will be able to cope with the amount of traffic.
It said: "National Highways has previously reviewed and accepted the modelling methodology, but we also note that Shropshire Council has subsequently paused all work on the proposed Shrewsbury North West Relief Road (NWRR) following discussions with one of the scheme’s primary funding bodies.
"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 sustainable urban extension (SUE).
"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 (OLR forming phase 1). 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."
Last week it was also confirmed that Shropshire Council would be conducting its own investigation into the handling of the relief road project.
A decision on the Cornovii plan will be taken at a later date.