British Ironwork Centre’s promise on traffic and tickets
Events will continue to be ticketed and traffic marshals will be used at a popular tourist attraction in a bid to manage major show-pieces moving forward, it has been announced.
The news comes as the British Ironwork Centre near Oswestry is bidding to win retrospective planning permission for the tourist attraction on the edge of the town that was built without consent.
A previous application, which included a number of extra attractions off the A5 at Morda, was withdrawn after two years of talks.
Now a retrospective application is in the hands of Shropshire Council.
A decision on the application is expected in the spring and the centre has published an event traffic management plan showing how it plans to deal with large events.
Previous large events have seen traffic queuing and backing up along with A5.
According to the plan, during events the centre will continue to operate a ticket-based system to manage the number of people entering the site.
Traffic marshals will also be put in place to ensure a safe and free flow of traffic to and from the A5, and to make sure visitors enter and leave the site by approved routes and in accordance with safe practices.
The plan states: “The centre in 2019 has only 12 event days currently planned, with six of these likely to have an attendance of under 500 visitors, based on ticket sales and traffic counter data previously recorded.
“To date other event days typically have a modest attendance of below 1,000 attendees.
“All events which are likely to receive over 500 attendees are already ticketed.
“These events will be subject to a Shropshire Council events licence protocol and fall under Permitted Development Rights.
“Consideration will be given to ticketing all events but it will be reviewed whether this is appropriate for events below a threshold of 100 attendees.”
Earlier this year Highways England supported the retrospective plans on the basis that certain moves are taken to manage major events.
The whole application is for the extension and alterations to existing lawful buildings to include improvements to an existing access and change of use of land to formalise the sculpture park on part of the site.