Drivers entering Shrewsbury could soon be stung with congestion charge zones at three key gateways into the town, it was revealed today.

Motorists who drive into the centre through Town Walls, Mardol Quay and Castle Gates will have to pay the fee if plans by the borough council go ahead.

The plans were unveiled by Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council chief executive Robin Hooper at a meeting last night when he spelled out the authority’s vision for the town centre’s future. Other ideas included pedestrianising High Street and two new car parks at Wyle Cop and by the current sixth form college.

I am glad personally the dreaded motor car is finally being restricted to the town and also that pedestrianisation is getting a more realistic option

Well Done I say !

And what happens if you live at the start of Town Walls and have to use it several times a day for access to your business as I do?

I'm in the same boat SPCS ! Not sure what line of work your in If i could advise I would suggest walking without being rude !

I have an interest in Town Walls as well...

Just checked the situation for residents of the central London Congestion Charge area. Residents can register one private vehicle (registration costs £10 per year) for a 90% discount - this is known as a ‘Residents’ discount’. The Residents’ discount is only available to people who live in properties that are mainly used for residential purposes.

Businesses in central London can apply for the Fleet Scheme (registration costs £10 per vehicle per year).

I presume the 10p charge to cross Kingsland Bridge will be increased? Otherwise, a trip down Swan Hill, College Hill and Roushill Bank would seem like the cheapest option for your business Ant SPCS!

I'd be happy to see more of the town centre pedestrianised and congestion charging introduced with a few caveats:

1) More parking on outskirts of town with more frequent P&R into centre.

2) More frequent bus services using the smaller, quieter, less polluting Optare types with big old noisy polluting buses got rid of.

3) Bus services running later into the evenings.

4) Provision for disabled car access to town centre.

5) A new road enabling cars to get from West Shrewbury to North Shrewsbury without going through the Town Centre.

6) Scheme for residents/businesses to get a discount on CC (like in London)

Those would be essentials for me before going ahead with the CC but I'd also like to see some form of Shropshire Travel card which would enable unlimited travel on buses and trains in the county and a car club so that I could access a car on occasions if I needed one.

http://www.carplus.org.uk/carclubs/what-are.htm

If we had all of that I would probably sell my car and no doubt save a lot of money!

I have just returned from hoiliday in Austria,all the towns and cities are traffic free,the modern electric trolley buses they use are whisper quiet and fast,these are backed up with modern trams and diesel electric buses,this country is still in the dark ages with transport.

Ha, not quite all. Last time I was there I got stuck in traffic for an hour trying to get through Linz.

I would agree with all you said Jonesy. I wonder why oh why that general consensus is so not listerned to. The councillors do seem to have a say in pedestrianisation which on previous threads I have been told they dont and that its the politicians we should be speaking too. The sooner that traffic which I must admit is heavily congested just latley through the centre of the town is charged for all this congestion, the better! So councillors get on with it !

Councillors are the politicians. :rolleyes:

No disrespect to councillors, I do not see they have the makings and should be labelled as politicians. They are just councillors

Eh?! Councillors are politicians! That's a fact.

And in this other thread which you speak of I pointed out that town planners, which are civil servants, do not have the final say on matters such as pedestrianisation, nor can they just instigate such a scheme by themselves. It is the politicians - in this case our councillors - who have the power.

Proud Salopian it must be said you have such a complex. Also an assumption everything yuo say is correct

Well I'd like to hear your explanation on how councillors are suddenly now not politicians!

Definitions of Councillor on the Web:

A councillor is a member of a council (such as a city council), particularly in the U.K., Canada, and its former colonies. The US equivalent is councilman or councilwoman.

means the Convener or any other person holding office as a member of the Review Council.

the person elected to represent the people in a local government.


Definitions of politician on the Web:

a person active in party politics
a schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways

A politician is an individual involved in politics.
a person who is running for office or has won an election and is already in office

A politician is a person who holds a political office. They may or may not have been elected.

Looks like a councillor fits all of those definitions.

Corrupt
Organised
Underrated
Nuisances that
Can
Influence
Lesser
Locals in
Order to
Realise their
Self Interests

I like that one! Haven't seen it before... got any more? :D

Anyway, back to the subject of road charging in Shrewsbury:

http://www.shropshirestar.co.uk/2006/10/to...er-road-pricing

I'm for this scheme so long as it only covers the town centre AND doesn't cover Smithfield Road (this can be covered when the North West Relief Road is built though).

I think we should take a lesson from the Spanish here. Pamplona, a historic town with narrow streets like ours solves its traffic problems in a far more user friendly way.
The buses are frequent, modern, clean and cheap. They run regualrly until 10:30PM. The cost is one euro - whether you travel one stop or the whole route. Residents have a plastic card that they charge with credit at newsagents or their bank ATM. They pass these through a reader as they board the bus deducting a mere 47 euro cents (about 35p) for each trip. If you make a second trip within 30mins of the first the card reader deducts NO credit.
Therefore you can travel across a city of 180,000 inhabitants for 35p on a clean, modern, airconditioned/heated bus at convenient times. No wonder they're well used!

Now you see, that sounds sensible. Therefore I wouldn't expect to ever see it in this country. Or England. Or Scotland.

A sensible policy for a sensible Britain.... oh hang on..... :rolleyes:

Errrm... London's oystercard, anyone? I was thinking that a smartcard is what Shrewsbury should have on its buses, with half-price fares or something for those users. Increase the frequency and patronage would rocket, I am sure.

London has a city-wide authority with considerable resources and anyway it's difficult to compare a capital city of 7.5 million with a county town of 72,000...

I realise that, but it's in the UK. England, as it were. And Smartcard technology can evidently (by the Spanish example above) be implemented relatively cheaply. It's all about implementation. And with talk of a council region / powers shake-up on the Shropshire Star, congestion charge policies may be able to be more effective.

The only "shake-up" around here will be the abolition of the district councils. I doubt that will provide the resources or concentration of power which is needed for such a scheme. Really there needs to be a strong and coherant national policy for transport in England.

If there was a congestion charge brought in, I would insist that disabled people would be exempt from it.

My wife is a wheelchair user, and even though there is a wheelchair accessible bus from Alberbury Drive (close to where we live in Sundorne Grove) into the town centre, she has found travelling on the bus to be a lot less comfortable for her than being driven in our wheelchair accessible minibus. Because of the angle of the bays at the central bus station in town, my wife has difficulty in getting onto the bus there in her electric wheelchair. The quality of ride on the bus is also poorer than in our minibus (which has air suspension), especially when the bus goes round corners.

In addition, the bus service back to Sundorne Grove ends quite early in the evening - so we couldn't rely on it for a night out anyway.

Richard Mills

In the meantime the Midland Metro is struggling to survive,this government keeps banging on about global warming but refuses to back rapid transit systems like the M.M.Its a victim of its own success with overcrowding and equipment failures ,i know i am always going on about european cities,but until you have used the trams buses and trains abroad you will never realise how backward we realy are here

The government refuses to back rapid transit systems like the Midland Metro?

Is that because the government can make more money by milking us for petrol duty, road tax (and now congestion charges and the proposed Big Brother road pricing scheme) than by providing a realistic alternative that will actually be fast, reliable, comfortable, convenient and cheap enough to be more attractive than the car?

Who wants to pay through the nose to take a bus into town and stand on a crowded train full of airborne viruses when it's quicker, easier, comfier and cheaper to take the car - and without finding that your train's been delayed and ending up late for work?

Richard

Hi megtec
I agree,cost is every thing,if i use the bus from Castlefields to town it costs £110p each way,no wonder the car is the preferred choice by most people,and why should the people of Shropshire have to drive to Stafford in order to catch a through train to London?

Exactly - and you can take the car when *you* want to, rather than being at the whim of a bus or train timetable and then find that your bus or train has been delayed anyway! And you can drive directly to where you want to go, rather than having to change buses or trains, and even then not always get that close to where you are going.

Richard

I read something else interesting a couple of days ago - apparently they want to use the money for the congestion charge to finance the North West Relief Road.

I'm not in favour of the North West Relief Road either, as it will cut through more acres of countryside, and will probably also increase traffic on the A49, as people may take the A49, followed by the Battlefield bypass and the NWRR, to rejoin the A5 to go to Oswestry rather than looping round the dual carriageway. Especially in the summer when the A5 is chocka for all the tourists passing along it on their jolly way to Wales. That means more traffic noise, pollution and congestion near my house!

Richard

But the North West Relief Road would drastically cut traffic on Whitchurch Road, the A5191 through Ditherington and Spring Gardens, the junction near the railway station, Smithfield Road and over the Welsh Bridge through Frankwell. A much needed final stage of the Shrewsbury ring road.

That would be a good thing. Ditherington road certainly lives up to its name!!!

this has just been on Central News but the filming made it look like the only problem of traffic was public transport.There were loads of buses going up and down the Cop -Shropshire bus,park and ride and Arriva were all on film.

s.g.d.

Yes when in reality the buses in Shrewsbury (other than the heavily subsidised Park and Ride) are terrible - expensive and infrequent.

Deregulation was supposed to create healthy competion,now Arriva have a virtual monopoly in Shropshire.

It was so obvious what would happen after deregulation (i.e. a proliferation of little companies all competing with each other, followed by mass consolidation into regional bus monopolies that cherrypick the best routes and have abandoned most rural and off-peak services) that I cannot believe that this was not the Thatcher government's intended outcome all along.

Competition would be a good idea if we had a free market. Unfortunately, we have never had anthing remotely resembling a free market in transport. I'd rather go back to the days of municipal operators and the National Bus Company.

Would be nice to see more 'greener' buses and even taxis in Shrewsbury. By green I dont mean the colour. :blink: Most of the buses spew out acrid deisel fumes as do some taxis. I'm not being hypercritical here my car is electric under 30mph and liquid (gas) over 30 mph. I have no doubt though that congestion charges will go ahead though in the Town. I have always thought that less traffic in the town was a good thing!

Is there a traffic congestion problem in town? I don't drive through it myself. If I need to go in to shop I park outside the river loop and walk in. Can't say that I've heard of much of a problem outside the rush hours.

The only real congestion I've come across was the other Friday afternoon when we had all that snow. The old A5 and approach roads were virtually gridlocked. Now that was real congestion similar to what people have to put up with daily down south for hours on end.

It seems to me that congestion charging would be another way of raising revenue up here. I can see that congestion is a real problem in London but not in Salop.

Or better still ,Midland Red.