Campaigners call for clarity over government pledge to ‘fully fund’ Shrewsbury NWRR
Campaigners against the North West Relief Road in Shrewsbury have accused the government of ‘smoke and mirrors’ over its pledge to ‘fully fund’ the controversial scheme using cash from HS2’s cancelled northern leg.
On Thursday the Prime Minister announced that the West Midlands will benefit from £9.6 billion in transport investment re-directed from the cancelled HS2 work. Within the announcement was a £250m pot to ‘fully fund’ ten smaller road schemes in the Midlands, including the Shrewsbury North West Relief Road; the A4123 Birchley Island, near Oldbury; the A509 Isham Bypass; and the A434 Northampton-Kettering dualling.
However, campaigners say the numbers don’t add up, raising fresh questions about the funding of the NWRR as costs continue to soar.
Better Shrewsbury Transport (BeST) says it has crunched the figures and concluded that the £250m pot to finance the ten road schemes falls far short of what is necessary to ensure they are ‘fully funded’.
It comes as news breaks that most of the commitments to fund new transport links that were announced in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s speech last week have subsequently been deleted from the government’s website. Transport Secretary Mark Harper has now claimed that the announcements were merely ‘examples’ of the ‘sorts of things that that money could be spent on.’
In response, Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has accused the government of offering ‘fantasy promises,’ adding: ‘They can’t hide from the fact that they released a document that looked like it had been scribbled in crayon by advisers that had never left London’.
Speaking for Better Shrewsbury Transport (BeST) Mike Streetly says: "On Wednesday we were told that the government was fully funding the North West Relief Road, sharing a pot of £250m to finance ten schemes across the West Midlands. But, as so often with this government, all that glisters isn’t gold. The £250m pot is nowhere near enough to cover ten schemes. The NWRR itself is likely to cost around £200m. Birchley Island was costed at £30m in 2021; the Isham bypass is set to cost £45m; the A43 Northampton-Kettering improvements are estimated at £28m. That’s £303m to fully fund just four schemes from a £250m pot that’s supposed to finance ten schemes in total.
"Either the DfT’s calculator is broken, or the promise to ‘fully fund the NWRR’ is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. We’re calling on Shropshire Council to urgently come clean on this issue: how much will the NWRR cost and who is paying for it? The scheme has been subject to a council audit since February but there is still no clarity on timing or funding for residents who are fed up with watching the council slash services while prioritising this road to ruin. Is the NWRR fully funded as promised, or is the government telling massive porkies?"
