Shropshire Council 'must look ahead for transport in Oswestry'

That is the view of Councillor Duncan Kerr, who was part of an Oswestry Town council delegation at a stakeholder meeting at the Marches School about the draft Shropshire Council Place Plan 2019/20.

The plan contains proposals for a £13.2 million Oswestry Innovation Park and future investments to the road network at Mile End.

Cllr Kerr said that one aspect that needed a lot more work and investigation was the concept of proposed by David Ward of Oswestry Civic Society.

"There's a lot of talk about a new innovation park and the improvements to the A5 roundabout at Mile End but that work seems to be in response to the immediate needs of the traffic and innovation park," he said.

"David Ward was suggesting a much longer term vision; a sort of 2050 vision which could see the whole realignment of the A5 further to the east, which would remove all those roundabouts that cover the A5 up at the moment around Oswestry, enable Oswestry to be united with Gobowen as a potential hub for sustainable transport; it would declassify the A5 around those roundabouts and offer a very interesting vision for sustainable communities."

Cllr Kerry said that when it was asked what had happened to the proposal, the response was that it should go into the council's transport plan.

"This is where planning breaks down – we need a holistic vision of everything. We don't want a plan for transport and a separate plan for minerals and a separate plan for housing," he added.

"We want a combined vision which we then can deliver rather than doing it in a peace meal fashion."

Cllr Kerr said it was important that the plan "encapsulates all the potential benefits that development can provide to communities like Oswestry" and that developers make a suitable contribution.

The draft plan includes a raft of transport, economic, environmental and community projects that are at different stages of action or discussion.

Transport improvements in the draft plan include works to the A5's Whittington Road and Shotatton junctions.

He added that the plan should focus on hospitals, roads, doctor's services and open spaces, but he added: "We also need to things about the other things that make a community, like teenage facilities, I mentioned a skateboard park [in the meeting] for instance, and East Oswestry is rather dowdy at the moment and old fashioned, and we need the appropriate facilities for teenagers.

Cllr Kerr also suggested better signage on the cycleways around the town town and improvements to traffic calming measures.

The councillor said that "the proof of the pudding will be in the eating" and that the plan is at the stage of asking for suggestions.

"The difficulty about this process is that you'll end up with a list of course, and when there is a development, what what they actually require is a planning decision. That's my worry: it's not that we won;t put the right things down on the list. Will they actually be strong enough when they have a developer to actually mandate some of these.

"We've seen in the past that development in Oswestry hasn't really produced the areas of open lands and other features that we wish to see with development – it's been a little bit 'just build the houses and on't worry too much about the other aspects'."

"We want to make sure that in the future that we have a holistic view of development and we want to make sure that the community gets all its infrastructure needs."

The Civic Society launched the Oswestry 2050 campaign last year.

Launching the campaign, Mr Ward said: "David added: “Having an overall plan would make it easier to make a case for major investment, such as relief to the A5 and A483.

“It would also to make it easier to avoid unpopular short-term decisions based on a theoretical need to develop small packets of land, and make a case for the inclusion of the hill fort and its surroundings in a protected area of countryside.

“It could also allow areas for self-build development and sustainable passive housing.”