The M54 eastbound from Tong shuts on the nights of 21 and 22 September. Six roads are being resurfaced, from Whitchurch to Ludlow, and three bridges stay shut.
The M54 eastbound closes completely between Junction 3 at Tong and Junction 2 on the nights of Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September, from 9pm to 6am. That is the route from Shifnal and Albrighton towards the M6, and there is no way through on the motorway while it is shut.
It is the busiest fortnight of resurfacing Shropshire Council has run this autumn. Six roads are being taken out of use in turn, in Bridgnorth, Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Broseley and Albrighton. Three bridges are still shut, and two of them reopen on Friday 25 September.
What is closed across the county right now:
- Hollybush Road, Bridgnorth, B4364 junction to the Oldbury Wells School junction, closed 9.30am to 4pm to Friday 25 September
- Newport Road and Bridgewater Street roundabout, Whitchurch, closed 9.30am to 2.45pm to Friday 25 September
- Sitka Drive, Shrewsbury Business Park, closed 7pm to 6am each night to Saturday 26 September
- Parys Road, Ludlow, closed 8pm to 6am each night to Saturday 26 September
- M54 eastbound, Junction 3 to Junction 2, 9pm to 6am, nights of Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September
- Horse Bridge near Minsterley and Rhiew Revel Bridge near Pant, both closed around the clock to 25 September
- Tetchill Bridge near Ellesmere, closed around the clock to 30 September
- A456 at Boraston, a Severn Trent mains renewal due to finish today, 21 September
- Castle Foregate, Cross Street and Howard Street, Shrewsbury, Sundays and a run of overnight dates to 8 November
What is still to come:
- Ruyton XI Towns, pothole planing on Blackbow Hill, Thursday 24 September
- Shrewsbury Half Marathon, town centre closures, morning of Sunday 27 September
- Hollybush Road, Bridgnorth, second phase, 28 September to 2 October, when the way into Oldbury Wells School switches
- Coalport Road, Broseley, closed 9.30am to 4pm, 30 September to 7 October
- Frankwell, Shrewsbury, one way overnight, 30 September to 7 October
- Woodhouse Lane, Albrighton, full closure, 5 to 9 October
This page was last checked against the council’s own pages, the National Highways closure report and the event organisers on 21 September 2026.
The M54 shuts eastbound from Tong on Monday and Tuesday nights
National Highways’ seven-day closure report, last updated on the afternoon of 18 September, lists the M54 eastbound between Junction 3 and Junction 2 as a full carriageway closure for maintenance. It runs from 9pm to 6am on the night of Monday 21 September and again on the night of Tuesday 22 September. The diversion is “via National Highways and local authority network”.
Junction 3 is the Tong interchange, where the A41 crosses the motorway on the Shropshire side of the county boundary. Junction 2 is Coven Heath, on the edge of Wolverhampton. So this is the stretch most people from Shifnal, Albrighton and further west use to reach the M6. The westbound carriageway, towards Telford and Shrewsbury, is not in the closure.
The report lists nothing at all on the A5 in Shropshire this week. Its A5 rows are at Redmoor near Milton Keynes, Towcester, Flore, Leighton Buzzard and the Rising Sun roundabout at Brownhills, none of them in this county. The Wolfshead roundabout to Felton Butler stretch at Nesscliffe, which the report carried earlier this month, is not in this week’s edition.
The report is republished every day, so a closure listed today can move. Worth knowing if you go looking for it yourself: National Highways changes the file’s web address each time it publishes, so an old link to the spreadsheet quietly serves you a fortnight-old set of closures. Start from the closure report page, not from a saved link.
Bridgnorth: Hollybush Road, and the school access switches on 28 September
Shropshire Council is resurfacing four Bridgnorth roads and repairing a rock face in three phases between 14 September and 2 October. The council’s notice sets them out:
| Dates | Where | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| 14 to 18 September, finished | New Road and West Castle Street, rock face work | 24 hour closure |
| 14 to 18 September, finished | Underhill Street, Low Town Bridge to the B4363 junction, resurfacing | 9.30am to 4pm |
| 21 to 25 September, running now | Hollybush Road, B4364 junction to the Oldbury Wells School junction | 9.30am to 4pm |
| 28 September to 2 October | Hollybush Road, Oldbury Wells School junction to the Pound Street and Listley Street roundabout | 9.30am to 4pm |
Each phase is a full road closure during working hours, with a signed diversion. Temporary traffic lights run at the nearby junctions. Access is kept for residents and businesses inside the closure when it is safe, and for pedestrians, dismounted cyclists, equestrians and emergency vehicles throughout.
The detail parents at Oldbury Wells School need is which way in stays open, and it changes next Monday. For this week’s phase, access is kept from the north via Pound Street. From 28 September it switches to from the south via Underhill Street. The two phases are on the same road, either side of the school turning, which is why the approach flips rather than the closure simply moving along.
The first phase finished as announced on Friday 18 September, so New Road, West Castle Street and Underhill Street are all open again.
Six roads resurfaced, from Whitchurch to Albrighton
Six Shropshire Council resurfacing closures are live or booked over the next fortnight, all carried out by Kier Infrastructure. Every one keeps access for pedestrians, dismounted cyclists, equestrians and blue light calls.
Running now:
- Newport Road and Bridgewater Street roundabout, Whitchurch, closed 9.30am to 2.45pm from Monday 21 to Friday 25 September (announced 7 September)
- Sitka Drive, Shrewsbury Business Park, closed 7pm to 6am each night from Monday 21 to Saturday 26 September (announced 4 September)
- Parys Road, Ludlow, closed 8pm to 6am each night over the same dates (announced 3 September)
- Hollybush Road, Bridgnorth, in the two phases above
Booked:
- Coalport Road, Broseley, closed 9.30am to 4pm each weekday from Wednesday 30 September to Wednesday 7 October (announced 15 September)
- Woodhouse Lane, Albrighton, closed 8am to 5pm from Monday 5 to Friday 9 October (announced 17 September)
The Albrighton job is the one to read twice, because Shropshire has two villages of that name. This is the WV7 Albrighton, near Shifnal and about twenty miles south east of Shrewsbury, not the Albrighton on the A528 just north of the county town. The council’s notice says Woodhouse Lane runs from the A41 to the A464, which places it at Boningale on the south side of the village. Its hours are also longer than the rest, 8am to 5pm rather than the usual 9.30am start, so it takes out both peaks.
The two night jobs differ in one respect that matters if you live on the road. Parys Road keeps access for residents living within the closure as well as businesses, when it is safe. The Sitka Drive release lists businesses but not residents, which fits an industrial estate. Both ask that cars are not left parked on the road while work is under way.
Sitka Drive, Parys Road and Woodhouse Lane are all on the council’s 2026/27 resurfacing programme, which lists 92 stretches of road for this financial year. Only 11 are flagged for night working, and Sitka Drive is one of them. Worth knowing before you rely on that list: its “work completed” column is blank for all 92 entries, so the page tells you what is planned and nothing about what is done.
Frankwell shuts one way overnight from 30 September
A new closure went up on the newsroom on 18 September and is on no other council page. Frankwell in Shrewsbury closes one way overnight from 30 September to 7 October, while Severn Trent Water runs CCTV surveys and cleans its sewers.
The detail that decides whether it affects you is the direction. The closure stops traffic coming into the town centre from Frankwell Roundabout. Traffic going the other way, out of town, is not stopped. It runs 11pm to 6am only, and the council’s notice says there will be no work on Friday or Saturday nights, so six nights are affected rather than eight. Access is kept to homes and businesses inside the closure, with a signed diversion for everyone else.
Three bridges: two reopen on Friday
Shropshire Council announced three bridge closures in August. It has published nothing since to change any of them, so all three still stand as announced, and two of them are due back this week.
- Horse Bridge, carrying the B4387 over the Rea Brook near Minsterley, closed 1 to 25 September
- Rhiew Revel Bridge near Pant, carrying an unclassified road over a disused stretch of the Montgomery Canal, closed 1 to 25 September
- Tetchill Bridge, carrying the C1029 over the Tetchill Brook near Ellesmere, closed 7 to 30 September
None of the three has ever appeared on the council’s large-scale project works list. Bridge closures in Shropshire are announced through the newsroom and nowhere else, which is why a works list alone will not tell you the county is short three crossings.
All three are closed 24 hours a day with signed diversion routes. The work is being done by the council’s term maintenance contractor Kier, supervised by WSP.
One difference matters if you are on foot or on a bike. At Tetchill Bridge, access for pedestrians and dismounted cyclists stays open throughout. At Horse Bridge and at Rhiew Revel Bridge it does not: those two are shut to everyone. All three keep access to frontages up to the closure point.
What closes when
Castle Foregate: Sundays and a run of nights to 8 November
The railway bridge works at Castle Foregate in Shrewsbury were due to finish on 11 September. Network Rail found more steelwork to repair, and the scheme now runs to 8 November.
The bridges stay open to vehicles in the daytime. Castle Foregate, Cross Street and Howard Street close from 12.30am to 7am on Sunday 27 September, Sunday 4, 11, 18 and 25 October and Sunday 1 and 8 November, and from 8pm to 6am on a further set of dates from 28 September onwards. The footpath on one side of Castle Foregate is shut to pedestrians for the whole scheme.
Note that the Sunday closure on 27 September is the same morning as the half marathon, though the two do not overlap in time: the bridge reopens at 7am and the race closures start at 8am.
Our Castle Foregate closures page has every date, the diversion arrangements and the pedestrian route.
Shrewsbury Half Marathon: the town centre shuts on 27 September
The Shrewsbury Half Marathon and Metric Half runs on Sunday 27 September, with the half starting at 8.30am, and road closures are in place across the town centre from 8am to 12pm. The organiser’s residents’ guide is the only published list of the roads affected, and it names about 38 of them on a circular route.
The ones most people will notice:
- Welsh Bridge, Frankwell, Mardol Quay, Victoria Avenue and Victoria Quay
- English Bridge, two lanes closest to Coleham, leaving an exit down Wyle Cop and over the bridge towards Abbey Foregate
- Wyle Cop, left lane westbound only
- High Street, Mardol Head, Shoplatch, Bellstone, Barker Street and Bridge Street
- Chester Street, Smithfield Road and Coton Hill, in each case the lane nearest the river
- Claremont Bank, Murivance, Town Walls, Beeches Lane and St Julian’s Friars
Several of those are single-lane closures rather than full ones. If you are driving into town that morning, the useful detail is that Raven Meadows multi-storey stays open throughout, reached via Castle Foregate. Our Shrewsbury Half Marathon page has the full road list, the start times and the route.
Where the pothole planers go next
Shropshire Council has put a third Multihog road planer on the roads this month, alongside the two it already runs. The machine planes out a squared hole for a following gang to fill. The council says that is quicker than saw-cutting and breaking out a defect by hand, and cuts down on the need for road closures. Each one can treat 9,000 square metres of road a month.
The council published the September programme on 26 August. Work is weekdays only, 9.30am to 4pm unless the entry says otherwise. Expect temporary lane restrictions and slow traffic. One date is left:
| Date | Where | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 24 September | Track east of the poultry houses to Stanwardine Lane junction, and Blackbow Hill, Ruyton XI Towns | 9.30am to 2.45pm |
The council has still published nothing for October. Our September pothole repair page has the full programme, including the dates now past.
What is live now
Shropshire Council’s large-scale project works list is now down to two entries. It held 19 at the start of September, four by 14 September, and two when we checked it on 21 September. What has gone in the last week is Brookside in Pontesbury, which was due to finish on 18 September, and Squirrel Lane at Ledwyche, which was due to finish on 14 September. In both cases the council removed the entry rather than marking it complete, so the list records nothing about when either scheme actually ended.
| Where | What | Estimated finish |
|---|---|---|
| A456 Boraston, Bowerswood to the Peacock Inn | Burst driven mains renewal, road closed | 21 September |
| A488 Hope Valley | Landslip repairs, marked "now completed" | 31 January |
One of those two is marked finished, so the list is really telling you about a single live scheme across the whole county. Everything else on this page came from somewhere else.
That is the point worth taking away. The list has never carried the three bridge closures, or the Bridgnorth, Whitchurch, Broseley, Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Albrighton resurfacing, all of which are newsroom announcements only. It carries nothing on the M54 or the A5, because those are National Highways’ roads. And it carries nothing on the Frankwell sewer work.
An estimated finish date on that list is an estimate, not a promise. Treat a passed date as “probably finished, worth checking” rather than “reopened”.
Always check the live map before you rely on this list. The council publishes an interactive roadwork map built on one.network, which shows every permitted dig including the small ones, who is doing it, and the dates. It updates constantly. A page like this one cannot.
Flooding on the roads
Shropshire’s highway drainage network can be overwhelmed quickly in a thunderstorm, because water runs off surrounding land onto the road. That is the council’s own explanation, given when it put its highways service on standby for the thunderstorms at the end of August, with in-house drainage teams, contractors Kier and Multevo, and an incident room ready to open. Most of that flooding is temporary and drains away once the storm passes.
What to do about it:
- Do not drive through flood water
- Report flooding through improvingyourroads.shropshire.gov.uk
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