NWRR plans will not be decided until summer, council confirms

Plans for the £80 million Shrewsbury North West Relief Road are now not expected to be decided until the summer, Shropshire Council has confirmed.

Unresolved concerns over the impact on nearby protected habitats and the town’s water supply have been named among the reasons for the delay, but senior councillors said it was not expected that it would impact the overall project timeline.

The planning application for the controversial scheme, which will effectively complete the town’s ring road, was lodged in February 2021, and the authority had initially hoped it would go before the northern planning committee before the end of last year.

However the council submitted a revised version in September which required further consultation, and has now said it is still in talks with several consultees.

The delay was queried by Liberal Democrat councillor Rob Wilson, who represents Copthorne, at a meeting of the council’s cabinet.

He asked why the full business case – which needs to be approved by the Department for Transport (DfT) before a promised £54.4 million grant can be released for the scheme – was now not expected to be completed until the end of this year.

The date was given by Councillor Dean Carroll, portfolio holder for highways and physical infrastructure, at the last cabinet meeting in January – but Councillor Wilson pointed out that the council had said in September that the business case would be completed by the end of 2021.

He asked: “Can the council explain why, in the space of four months, the full business case has seemingly been delayed by up to a year?”

Councillor Carroll said that, in line with DfT requirements, full planning permission and fully resolved costs were required before the submission of the full business case.

He said: “Until the cost forecasts have been made, key calculations around value for money and the benefit-cost ratio are not able to be assessed and reported to DfT.

“Such calculations are then used as key assessment criteria by DfT in evaluating the project business case.

“Due to the ongoing liaison with bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency in order to satisfy planning requirements, the project has been advised that the planning determination has now been pushed back to summer 2022.

“Many of the environmental mitigation and monitoring solutions being agreed with these agencies will have an effect on the final North West Relief Road designs and therefore costs.

“As such, until planning permission is granted and final costs established, there are elements of the full business case that can’t be drafted, reviewed and approved.

“The full business case will also need to be considered by members at full council in advance of its submission and a revised programme now being prepared allows the time for all of this to be undertaken.

“The delay in submission of the full business case doesn’t at this time however mean that the North West Relief Road programme overall is critically impacted around the forecast construction and road opening dates.”

Councillor Carroll added that it was not believed the delay would impact the council being able to access the grant from the DfT, or a promised contribution of £4.2 million from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).