North West Relief Road .

[kenwood]

Can anyone through some light on developments concerning the NW Relief Road.

I understood that monies in the way of grants had been identified but that these would be withdrawn if work had not commenced by 10 January 2025 . I’m not certain about this date mind.
So, not long to go considering . 
If these monies are withdrawn are the Council in a position to fund this project in part asking government to increase their contribution. 

Im genuinely interested as I cannot see any work starting or any activity in the Shelton Rough area where Severn Trent and the Environment Agency have previously expressed concern .

[servernaside]

There's no way that this is ever going to happen with the present government in place.

[mattmw]

Quite a complicated answer to this one.

I short the work on the NWRR is progressing – put is still by no means certain to go ahead. The story behind it is perhaps why infrastructure projects in the UK take so long to be developed.

In order to build the NWRR Shropshire Council requires external funding for the project from the Department of Transport, and provisional support was given some years ago in 2019 by the then Terresa May government for a provisional figure of around £55 million. However to secure that funding Shropshire Council needed to draw up a full business case for the project and secure planning permission. That work has been progressing over the last 5 years with site surveys, environmental surveys, consultations with statutory consultees along with reviews of the exact route and supporting infrastructure needed.

Work has progressed on this with planning permission granted in October 2023 (subject to 60 plus conditions) and more work on the business plan has been progressed and should be signed off by Council in December this year. At that stage the Council can then go back to Central government and hopefully draw down the funding that was agreed in the past. However of course since that date we’ve had four different PM’s, a new government, covid, an economic meltdown and war in Ukraine which have all contributed to a totally different economic environment to when the initial £55 million was agreed for the scheme. Not sure on the full costs but its safe to say it’s a whole lot more than estimated back in 2019

So the new Labour government will need to review the ask for the £55 million and judge if they still want to support the project – which in the national context of government finance being very tight is by no means certain. Even if they do maintain the funding Shropshire Council will almost certainly be asked to meet any gap in funding for the project, which could well run into £30 million plus the costs already incurred in developing the project. The Council is of course strapped for cash so would need to consider the case for borrowing the additional money needed to deliver the project, or request additional money from Central government which would likely take a couple of years to be decided during which time the project costs will no doubt increase and the whole cycle starts again. All the time traffic congestion gets worse in the town and residents understandably get upset nothing seems to be happening.

Add in all of the above – and the potential for anti NWRR campaigners to seek a judicial review of the planning consent which would pause the whole project and you can see how difficult delivering an major infrastructure project is. In national finance terms the NWRR is actually quite a small project, so you can start to understand why much larger infrastructure in the country take so long to deliver and almost always goes massively over budget.

[rob62]

Thank you for your detailed and informative update on the situation.

My personal view, based on very few facts just a gut feeling is that it won't happen any time soon if at all

[Deleted]

Oct 15, 2024 15:51:54 GMT 1 mattmw said:

Quite a complicated answer to this one.

I short the work on the NWRR is progressing – put is still by no means certain to go ahead. The story behind it is perhaps why infrastructure projects in the UK take so long to be developed.

In order to build the NWRR Shropshire Council requires external funding for the project from the Department of Transport, and provisional support was given some years ago in 2019 by the then Terresa May government for a provisional figure of around £55 million. However to secure that funding Shropshire Council needed to draw up a full business case for the project and secure planning permission. That work has been progressing over the last 5 years with site surveys, environmental surveys, consultations with statutory consultees along with reviews of the exact route and supporting infrastructure needed.

Work has progressed on this with planning permission granted in October 2023 (subject to 60 plus conditions) and more work on the business plan has been progressed and should be signed off by Council in December this year. At that stage the Council can then go back to Central government and hopefully draw down the funding that was agreed in the past. However of course since that date we’ve had four different PM’s, a new government, covid, an economic meltdown and war in Ukraine which have all contributed to a totally different economic environment to when the initial £55 million was agreed for the scheme. Not sure on the full costs but its safe to say it’s a whole lot more than estimated back in 2019

So the new Labour government will need to review the ask for the £55 million and judge if they still want to support the project – which in the national context of government finance being very tight is by no means certain. Even if they do maintain the funding Shropshire Council will almost certainly be asked to meet any gap in funding for the project, which could well run into £30 million plus the costs already incurred in developing the project. The Council is of course strapped for cash so would need to consider the case for borrowing the additional money needed to deliver the project, or request additional money from Central government which would likely take a couple of years to be decided during which time the project costs will no doubt increase and the whole cycle starts again. All the time traffic congestion gets worse in the town and residents understandably get upset nothing seems to be happening.

Add in all of the above – and the potential for anti NWRR campaigners to seek a judicial review of the planning consent which would pause the whole project and you can see how difficult delivering an major infrastructure project is. In national finance terms the NWRR is actually quite a small project, so you can start to understand why much larger infrastructure in the country take so long to deliver and almost always goes massively over budget.

Great post.

One other thing to consider is that when money is coming from the public purse, either central or local government, contractors love nothing more than to find extra costs, extra delays which lead to more extra costs and other issues which lead to more delays and , well you get the picture. Until the developers and contractors are tied into binding contracts regarding price and timescale they will continue to milk every public project for every penny they can.

[zenfootball]

meanwhile the construction of the china to Kazakhstan railway has started it will 232km long jut over 144 miles long, it will involve the construction of 11 new stations, 47 bridges, 23 railway overpasses and 8 motorway overpasses .with a completion date of 2027, the construction started in 2023. it is very rare for any big Chinese infrastructure project to be late and they are often built ahead of time.

  

[rob62]

If the Chinese had of been building HS2 it would be all the way to Scotland by now

[davycrockett]

Oct 15, 2024 15:51:54 GMT 1 mattmw said:

Quite a complicated answer to this one.

I short the work on the NWRR is progressing – put is still by no means certain to go ahead. The story behind it is perhaps why infrastructure projects in the UK take so long to be developed.

In order to build the NWRR Shropshire Council requires external funding for the project from the Department of Transport, and provisional support was given some years ago in 2019 by the then Terresa May government for a provisional figure of around £55 million. However to secure that funding Shropshire Council needed to draw up a full business case for the project and secure planning permission. That work has been progressing over the last 5 years with site surveys, environmental surveys, consultations with statutory consultees along with reviews of the exact route and supporting infrastructure needed.

Work has progressed on this with planning permission granted in October 2023 (subject to 60 plus conditions) and more work on the business plan has been progressed and should be signed off by Council in December this year. At that stage the Council can then go back to Central government and hopefully draw down the funding that was agreed in the past. However of course since that date we’ve had four different PM’s, a new government, covid, an economic meltdown and war in Ukraine which have all contributed to a totally different economic environment to when the initial £55 million was agreed for the scheme. Not sure on the full costs but its safe to say it’s a whole lot more than estimated back in 2019

So the new Labour government will need to review the ask for the £55 million and judge if they still want to support the project – which in the national context of government finance being very tight is by no means certain. Even if they do maintain the funding Shropshire Council will almost certainly be asked to meet any gap in funding for the project, which could well run into £30 million plus the costs already incurred in developing the project. The Council is of course strapped for cash so would need to consider the case for borrowing the additional money needed to deliver the project, or request additional money from Central government which would likely take a couple of years to be decided during which time the project costs will no doubt increase and the whole cycle starts again. All the time traffic congestion gets worse in the town and residents understandably get upset nothing seems to be happening.

Add in all of the above – and the potential for anti NWRR campaigners to seek a judicial review of the planning consent which would pause the whole project and you can see how difficult delivering an major infrastructure project is. In national finance terms the NWRR is actually quite a small project, so you can start to understand why much larger infrastructure in the country take so long to deliver and almost always goes massively over budget.

Did I dream that the Conservative government said it would cover the whole cost whilst distributing the monies saved by scrapping HS2 within the last 12/18 months?

[davycrockett]

Oct 9, 2024 16:31:18 GMT 1 servernaside said:

There's no way that this is ever going to happen with the present government in place.

In fairness it didn’t happen with the previous government in place along with plenty of other things like care funding cap, build 300k houses a year, end rough sleeping, ban no fault evictions, build 40 new hospital, cut NHS waiting lists, stop the boats….. so probably best not to make it political………

Also not sure there’s an appetite in favour with the rest of Shropshire against and a growing number in Shrewsbury against…