Morda ruined – it’s a suburb of Oswestry, says councillor

Councillor Robert Milton has raised concerns about Morda, near Oswestry, as Shropshire Council bosses continue to seek views on controversial plans to build an extra 10,000 homes across the county.

Although almost 19,000 homes are already set to be built in the county, the plan says a further 10,000 will be needed by 2036. Public consultation on the housing plans will close on December 22.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England has already raised fears about the target, set out by Shropshire Council as part of its Local Plan Review.

The campaign group says it was not opposed to more housing but it needed to be the right types of homes in the right areas to support the genuine needs of the county’s diverse population.

However, Councillor Milton said he feared it was already too late to save traditional village life in Morda. He said: “There has been so much development, Morda is over-developed now.

“What we want is homes for first-time buyers, affordable homes but that hasn’t been the case. These estates are three or four-bedroom homes. Morda has been destroyed, it has lost its character and village status, it is now just a suburb of Oswestry.”

A development is currently ongoing on Weston Road, and it is on top of another Weston Road development in the last 15 years, two Trefonen Road housing estates, and two along Morda Road.

There is also planning consent to build flats on the car park of the Miners Arms public house. Planning permission has been granted for land off Erw Wen for many years, and permission has also been given for houses behind the current Morda Social Club.

Councillor Milton, a member of Oswestry Rural Parish Council, claims traffic dangers are a major problem. He said: “It is a well-known fact that Morda Road is a major road now, it can be a death trap at times. More traffic will cause more problems, more risks, that goes without saying.

“We don’t have the road systems for these amount of houses.”

The councillor believes there could be one positive to the over-development. He added: “You could argue that Morda needs a chained small supermarket store, that could add much-needed infrastructure forto accommodate the extra people.”