Audlem in roads radio debate

Audlem's successful battle to get the A525 removed from the Primary Route Network was featured in a radio debate this morning about the Government's new plans to give local authorities more say in road classification.

The AA and Audlem Online's editor discussed the proposals on BBC Radio Stoke with Audlem's narrow, winding road used by trans-Contintental HGVs given as a clear-cut argument for re-classification.

Despite this, it took forty years to see the road de-primed and even now, there will be years of campaigning to encourage HGVs to use more suitable alternatives.

Audlem campaigners, it was argued, had to persuade three county councils – Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire – and then three regional Government offices for the North West, West Midlands and, curiously, the North East of England, before the decision moved up to the Transport Ministry in London.

Eventually, the decision was signed off by the Secretary of State for Transport in 2010 but, as yet, the road signs have not been changed and local volunteers will have to do most of the work contacting truck companies and the SatNav companies.

Anything that simplifies the reclassification process will help communities like Audlem was the local argument but the AA fears that roads will become an uncoordinated network, particularly the Primary Routes.

Ensuring those routes were suitable for 44 tonne and ever-larger trucks was Audlem's riposte. A road like the A525 might have been suitable in the era of the horse and cart but was completely unsuitable for two HGVs trying to navigate through a 12 feet wide gap in opposite directions leading inevitably to a 15 minute traffic jam as one of them had to reverse down a hill around bends surrounded by other traffic.

The Government's proposals are now going out for consultation.

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