THE NIGHT OSWESTRY TOWN COUNCIL FORGOT ITS OWN HISTORY There are council meetings that drift quietly into obscurity, preserved only in minutes nobody reads and archived somewhere between ‘apologies received’ and ‘any other business’. And then there are meetings that accidentally reveal how power behaves when it assumes nobody important is watching. The latest OswestryContinue reading “WHEN TRANSPARENCY MEETS REALITY”
Tag Archives: community
WHEN THE ARCHITECTS LEAVE AND THE BILL IS SENT TO OSWESTRY
There is a pattern emerging in Shropshire that is now too obvious to ignore. Senior officers design risk.Senior officers depart.Residents are handed the invoice — repackaged as “local choice”. Last week, Miranda Garrard, Head of Legal and Democratic Services at Shropshire Council, became the fourth very senior officer to leave suddenly. Her farewell statement spokeContinue reading “WHEN THE ARCHITECTS LEAVE AND THE BILL IS SENT TO OSWESTRY”
Before Cabinet Meets: Three Questions Shropshire Councillors Ought to Ask Tomorrow
Buried quietly on the Council website, published days before a Cabinet meeting and largely unread by the public, sit two documents that matter more than almost anything else Shropshire Council will consider this year: • The Draft Medium Term Financial Plan 2026/27–2030/31• The accompanying Capital Strategy These are not background papers.They are the blueprint. OnceContinue reading “Before Cabinet Meets: Three Questions Shropshire Councillors Ought to Ask Tomorrow”
Smile, Pay, Be Quiet
The Lib Dem Art of Hypocrisy: When Residents Speak and Power Laughs Written in another age, but uncomfortably familiar today: We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,OurContinue reading “Smile, Pay, Be Quiet”
When the Money Ran Out: A Tale of Two Councils (and One Missing Opposition)
There are only two honest ways to respond to a financial crisis. You either take less yourself — or you become very clever indeed. Shropshire Council has tried both. Just not at the same time. 2011: When Councillors Went First At a full meeting of Shropshire Council in January 2011, during the early austerity period,Continue reading “When the Money Ran Out: A Tale of Two Councils (and One Missing Opposition)”
Cornovii: Behind Closed Doors
Transparency? Not under this council’s watch It began, as all grand civic delusions do, with a glossy brochure, a slogan, and a promise too good to question. Cornovii was to be Shropshire Council’s redemption — a home-building miracle that would prove local government could outwit the private sector. What it became instead was a textbookContinue reading “Cornovii: Behind Closed Doors”
Snouts First, Public Last
When Pain Was Shared, Not Shelved In 2011, Council Leader Keith Barrow stood at the despatch box and told Shropshire councillors that “there is going to be pain and we should all take our share of it.” He promptly sliced councillors’ allowances by 5%, cut mileage rates, and asked officers to consider reducing the totalContinue reading “Snouts First, Public Last”
From Dinghy to Dormitory: How our Government and Councils Sold Us Out
The Clown of the Year Moral fibre is no longer optional. Courage is no longer negotiable. And silence is not neutrality—it’s complicity. Welcome to Great Britain — Now With 22 Beds Per Room and No Questions Asked You there — yes, you with the mortgage, the council tax bill, and the quaint belief that localContinue reading “From Dinghy to Dormitory: How our Government and Councils Sold Us Out”
🧵 Austerity & Alibis: Shropshire Council’s Five-Year Plan to Save Itself (From Itself)
Shropshire Council has published its Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) — a 100+ page saga of budget balancing, political tightrope-walking, and the kind of fiscal optimism normally reserved for national lottery winners. The headline? A projected £63 million black hole by 2029/30, held at bay in the short term by one-off grants, temporary patches, and whatContinue reading “🧵 Austerity & Alibis: Shropshire Council’s Five-Year Plan to Save Itself (From Itself)”
The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team
The Transparency Tango: A Two-Council Performance in Delayed Disclosure Let us distil this for the public record: This, my friends, is not administration. It is performance art. And the recurring theme? Transparency is a threat to the system. Act I: Shropshire Council’s FOI Vanishing Act On 1 March 2025, a Freedom of Information request wasContinue reading “The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team”
The Alternative Council 