Star comment: Upgrade of A5 is vital to country

Perhaps officials from the transport department would benefit from being given a fact-finding tour by coach in which they would be driven up and down the road beyond Shrewsbury and into Wales. It might just open their eyes to something that is common sense.

As traffic levels continue to rise, improvements will have to be made anyway, so why not get them done now, or as soon as possible, and as part of an overall scheme rather than the piecemeal changes we have had over the years.

A comprehensive project would save money in the long term. Delaying things will simply mean that when the work is finally done it will cost more than it needed to.

According to North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson, who has long been a campaigner on the issue, Shropshire is unlikely to benefit from a new bypass fund, in which the money will go on A routes and not trunk roads like the A5 and the Oswestry bypass.

While Shropshire would not begrudge much-needed bypass work in other parts of the country, we can point out that it should not be a case of either-or.

In the post-Brexit environment Britain needs to show that it is serious about its infrastructure and have a roads system which compares with the best in Europe. It would demonstrate that the UK is confident in its future and prepared to back itself.

The A5 through Shropshire is a major strategic route which will connect the non-EU UK to the EU, through its terminus at Holyhead and the crossing to the Irish Republic. The current hotch-potch of improved parts with dual carriageway, and stretches in which it is not much better than a tortuous country road, is not the standard of A5 which is going to do the business for Shropshire, nor the United Kingdom, in the future.

To ignore the need to sort out the A5 demonstrates a lack of vision. It is disappointing and frustrating that it has been overlooked for so long and that when money is made available the first instinct of the Government is to spend it elsewhere.

What can be done? What Shropshire always has to do to get anything done. To keep banging the drum, and keep stressing the virtues of our case.

From a view of economics, safety, and a strategic vision for the future, it is time somebody started listening.