Shropshire Green Party

 

North West "Relief" Road

North West 'Relief' Road artists impression

North West "Relief" Road

The Green Party opposes any plans to build a road across the Severn Valley north of Shrewsbury:

  • It would be hugely expensive taking at least £17m from Shropshire Council's budget, plus 100% of any overspend on the project, at a time of very tight budgetary constraint. The money would be better spent on improvements to public transport and encouraging more people to walk, cycle or even car-share.
  • It wouldn't work, with any "relief" being temporary at best. Not only would congestion return soon after completion, but the increased traffic generated would further increase carbon emissions at a time when we urgently need to reduce them.
  • It would damage an important and unique landscape and its wildlife.

Read our objection to the road on the Shropshire Planning Portal.

Read our letter to the Department for Transport stating our objection to this project.

Local Elections 2021

All Shropshire Green Party candidates have signed up to the Sustainable Transport Pledge as well as the Cycling for Everyone pledge from Cycling UK.

In the news

Further reading

  • Planning application for the North West "Relief" Road scheme

    21/00924/EIA | North West Relief Road scheme. comprising - construction of 6.9km single carriageway (7.3m wide) road; severance of local roads and footpaths; provision of combined footway/cycleway; erection of three bridged structures over carriageway; diversion of existing bridleway/footpath via an underpass; climbing lane on westbound approach; 670m long viaduct; bridge over railway; two flood storage areas; provision of two new roundabout junctions and improvements to two existing roundabouts; associated traffic calming measures, landscaping and drainage schemes | Street Record Welshpool Road Bicton Heath Shrewsbury Shropshire.

  • Shrewsbury North West Relief Road

    Shropshire Council website pages on the North West "Relief" Road.

  • Shrewsbury North West Relief Road – Submission of Outline Business Case to DfT

    Shropshire Council outline business case (OBC) for the North West "Relief" Road, 13 December 2017 (PDF).

  • Shrewsbury North West Relief Road – Public Consultation 2017

    Shropshire Council public consultation exercise carried out in 2017.

  • CPRE: The end of the road? Challenging the road-building consensus

    This CPRE report reveals that road-building is failing to provide the congestion relief and economic boost promised, while devastating the environment. It directly challenges government claims that ‘the economic gains from road investment are beyond doubt’; that road-building will lead to ‘mile a minute’ journeys; and that the impact on the environment will be limited ‘as far as possible’. The report shows how road building over the past two decades has repeatedly failed to live up to similar aims.

  • CPRE: The Impact of Road Projects in England

    CPRE commissioned consultants Transport for Quality of Life Community Interest Company (TfLQ) to examine the impacts of road schemes on traffic, the environment, the economy, road safety and land use.  This study draws upon evidence of short-term impacts (between one and five years after scheme completion) from over 80 road schemes, published by Highways England through its Post-Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) process. This is supplemented by long-term evidence from four road schemes that were completed between 13 and 20 years ago: the A34 Newbury Bypass, M65 Blackburn Southern Bypass, A46 Newark – Lincoln dualling and A120 Stansted to Braintree dualling.

  • Beyond ‘predict and provide’: UK transport, the growth paradigm and climate change

    Thirty years ago, Adams (1981) depicted a future UK where everyone was a millionaire lorry driver, simply by extrapolating from contemporary official transport growth assumptions. These assumptions underpinned the ‘predict and provide’ approach which then characterised transport planning. Twenty years later, the New Deal for Transport White Paper (1998) abandoned ‘predict and provide’ as unsustainable. This paper argues that the same growth assumptions that Adams took to their logical (absurd) conclusion have re-emerged to define both transport and the drivers of transport demand. While non-aviation transport is supposed to be carbon-neutral by 2050, the implied reductions in emissions rely on an absolute decoupling of transport demand and its drivers for which there is no evidence in current planning. Targets rely on optimistic, narrowly framed technology forecasts and behaviour change assumptions which appear highly unlikely in the present socio-political climate. Moreover, such is the cost of mitigating these tensions between economic growth and other concerns, it is argued that the targeted outcomes of current policy are as undesirable as they are unlikely. The paper concludes by calling for a transport policy which considers mobility in an integrated, holistic fashion, rather than merely as a dimension of economic growth.

  • The UK transport policy menu: Roads, roads, and a dash of multimodalism

    A recurring policy of predict and provide with regard to road space to try in any way to meet predicted demand undermines the effectiveness and viability of demand management (and hence voluntary behaviour change) because provision of more road space enables people to retain the habit of car use. [Warning: Behind paywall]

  • Campaign for Better Transport: Bypasses don't work

    Official analysis of existing schemes has shown that bypasses don't reduce traffic. Instead, they encourage more people to drive and often just move the problem a few miles away.

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