Relief road alternatives for town - businessman

Paul Carvell from Shrewsbury BID has been looking at traffic solutions

A member of a Shrewsbury business group believes there are multiple solutions to the town's congestion problems, following the likely scrapping of plans for the relief road.

Paul Carvell from Shrewsbury BID has been working on Shrewsbury Moves, a 14-point strategy to improve movement around the town centre over the next 10 years.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: "What we call congested is really quite light in comparison to a lot of other big towns and cities."

The North West Relief Road (NWRR) would have taken traffic out of the town centre, but Mr Carvell said alternatives were being worked on.

One proposal to reduce through-traffic would involve dividing the town up into separate zones, accessed by a loop road, with traffic leaving the same way it went in.

Another of the proposals involved setting up a hub for deliveries, with vans and lorries dropping off their goods on the edge of town to then be ferried to their location by delivery bikes.

Under that proposal, larger deliveries would only be allowed into the town centre before 10:00 and after 16:00.

The pedestrianisation of the town centre, improved park and ride and a new train station are also being considered.

Shrewsbury Moves is a 14-point strategy to improve movement around the town centre

Mr Carvell, who is also a local clothing retailer, said the BID group had surveyed the vehicles going in and out of town and found 80% were passing through and did not stop to visit the town centre.

He said the town already had "quite a number of ring roads" to accommodate them, and that money could be found to make further improvements.

The zoning idea came from Belgium and the Netherlands he said, but like the other proposals, were "no quick fix".

Nevertheless, he added that compared to what he had seen in cities like London, "I don't really believe we're that badly served".