The Great British Asylum Housing Caper – Oswestry Edition

The Whispering Council

Once upon a time, Oswestry’s councillors claimed to speak for the town. Now they speak mainly in whispers — if at all. A 22-bed HMO rammed into the former Smithfield Hotel, another at 23 Cross Street, and more speculative conversions lining up like dominoes — yet the Town Council contents itself with a token mutter in a meeting, then retreats into silence.

The Roll Call of Silence

From Mayor Rosie Radford to Darrell Brindley, Rebekah Anderton, Mark Roberts, David Walker, Care Johnson, James Moore, Ruth Simmonds, Richard Elmitt, Wendy Owen, Jonathan Upton, Lucy McKinney, Fiona Wilson, Grace Goodlad, Mark Owen, James Owen, Duncan Borrowman — not a word, not a whimper, not even a Facebook post. And Cllr Duncan Kerr, the only Green in the village? He considers it sufficient merely to ask that Shropshire Council’s Planning Committee glance at the issue, as though moving it from one inbox to another counts as resistance. The firebrand of 2022 has become the church mouse of 2025.

The MP for Nowhere to be Seen

And presiding over this vanishing act? Helen Morgan — North Shropshire’s MP for Nowhere to be Seen. When she’s not tweeting platitudes about “community strength,” she’s perfecting the ancient parliamentary art of selective invisibility whenever 22-bed migrant HMOs appear in her constituency. One wonders: is her diary full, or just her silence?

The Speculators’ Feast

Meanwhile, property speculators — notably Bhupinderjit “Jassy” Sidhu — gorge themselves on derelict pubs and ex-hotels, shoving them through the sausage machine of HMO finance. Outsourcing giants hoover up public money, take a middleman’s cut, and guarantee rents to landlords who couldn’t find Oswestry on a map without satnav. The result? Locals watch their housing prospects vanish while our high streets morph into taxpayer-funded dormitories — all conveniently branded as “supportive accommodation.”

The School Run Reality Check

And let’s not forget the geography: nearly 1,500 schoolchildren pass directly by these sites twice a day. Twice. Every morning and every afternoon, a river of uniforms streaming past speculative HMOs. Perhaps some councillors even have children or grandchildren in that throng. Are they reassured? Are they proud? Or is civic safety now just another “planning condition” — easily ignored, preferably forgotten? After all, what could possibly go wrong with cramming 22 strangers into an ex-pub next to the school run? Clipboards for the kids, perhaps, so they can conduct the risk assessments their elders won’t.

The Echo of Developers’ Tills

And the councillors? Silent. Absent. Complacent. They hide behind agendas and polite minutes while the town is sold off room by room, lease by lease. The only thing louder than their silence is the sound of developers’ tills ringing.

The Final Reckoning

Britain 2025: where “public need” is a polite phrase for private greed; where Oswestry is a test bed for speculative housing masquerading as humanitarianism; where councillors mistake cowardice for caution. Whitehall calls it compassion, the contractors invoice it as logistics, the landlords bank it as profit — and Oswestry’s elected guardians call it a night at 8.15 p.m., once the agenda item is ticked.

The truth? The immigration crisis isn’t at Dover; it’s in the council chamber, hiding behind the mute button. Tick-tock, councillors. Silence may be golden — but at the next election, it might be your P45.