Dual the A5 campaign: Villages ‘choked due to delays’
Country roads and villages in Shropshire are being choked by traffic because motorists are fed-up with constant hold-ups on the A5, it has been claimed.
Drivers are using routes as rat-runs day-after-day, a councillor has said.
Among the worst places being affected were said to be Baschurch and Ruyton-Xl-Towns, which see heavy lorries, vans and cars constantly travelling through. Shropshire councillor, Nick Bardsley, represents both villages and says the Shropshire Star’s Dual-It campaign could help the area.
“All power to your elbow,” Councillor Bardsley said.
“The Shropshire Star and Owen Paterson’s good work campaigning to see the A5 dualled can only help the cause,” Councillor Bardsley said. “If the A5 was dualled between the Churncote roundabout outside Shrewsbury and the Welsh border, it would transform the lives of those living in Ruyton and Baschurch,” he said.
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Councillor Bardsley said he believed that about 75 per cent of traffic going through the two villages was through traffic.
“It is traffic that is travelling south on the A5 and turns left at the Shotatton crossroads. Lorries, vans, cars, all going through Ruyton and onto Baschurch where they turn right and through the busy village with its two schools,” he said. “It goes onto Walford, Leaton and out to the Harlescott area.
“Traffic is doing the route in both directions every day and through the evening and night.
“You can’t blame the drivers because what is the alternative? Driving through the middle of Shrewsbury or getting held up on the single-carriageway A5 and the Shrewsbury bypass.”
“If we could get the A5 dualled it would transform this part of north Shropshire.”
The Shropshire Star’s petition has almost 4,000 online signatures and hundreds of people have also signed our form in the paper and handed it into one of our offices.
