Shropshire Council has shelved the £215m Shrewsbury North West Relief Road (NWRR) after the Department for Transport (DfT) made clear that it will not put up any money beyond the £54m originally pledged.
The council, which is now run by the Liberal Democrats, said leader Heather Kidd and deputy leader Alex Wagner met DfT officers earlier this week to “discuss the scheme, seek clarity about funding and explore options with regards to its future”:
During the meeting officers from the DfT confirmed that they would not award any more money than had been originally allocated to the project. Furthermore, the Local Transport Fund of £136.4m, originally mooted by the previous administration to fund the scheme, has been replaced with a Local Transport Grant totalling only £48m.
However, they also confirmed that the council would need to cancel work on the road before a formal discussion could proceed with Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood MP, the Department for Transport and other parts of central government about the £39m it has already spent on the scheme.
The council said it had “paused all work” on the scheme but Cllr Kidd said the council had no choice but to cancel it, faced with a funding gap of over £176m:
(more…)“Through our conversations with the Department for Transport, it was made very clear that no more funding would be allocated to the scheme. This makes it simply unaffordable.
“As you can imagine, there are many implications for cancelling the road however we really have no choice.”
