There’s a strange rumour doing the rounds in Shropshire’s housing circles:“Homes England has taken over Wrekin Housing Group.” Now, this is only partly true — but the truth it reveals is far more interesting than the rumour itself. Because once you dig beneath the polite announcements and the PR gloss, a picture emerges that’s lessContinue reading “THE INVISIBLE HAND THAT BUILDS SHROPSHIRE (AND IT ISN’T THE COUNCIL)”
Tag Archives: housing
CIL? WHAT CIL? JUST ANOTHER DAY IN TRANSPARENT SHROPSHIRE
The CIL Trick: When the Council Develops Homes and Quietly Misplaces Its Own Tax Bill There’s a special kind of magic in Shropshire Council’s housebuilding operation. The sort of magic in which houses appear, PR photos multiply, councillors beam… and then — poof! — the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) vanishes like a toddler’s biscuit. CILContinue reading “CIL? WHAT CIL? JUST ANOTHER DAY IN TRANSPARENT SHROPSHIRE”
THE £37 MILLION CIL QUESTION
THE GREAT SHROPSHIRE CIL SWINDLE (ALLEGEDLY, BUT YOU KNOW…) You’ve hopefully had a good chuckle during The Elephant in the Room series — the vanishing FOIs, the disappearing councillors, the council-owned companies that behave like Russian dolls with a drinking problem. But now, dear reader, the humour gives way to the hard questions. Because behindContinue reading “THE £37 MILLION CIL QUESTION”
THE HOUSING MACHINE THAT NOBODY ORDERED
How Homes England, the Councils, and Their Favourite Friends Built a System Only a Bureaucrat Could Love Opening: The Gloves Come Off Let’s begin with a confession: I used to think house building was simple. A bit of land, a few bricks, and a council officer who hasn’t mysteriously gone home at 3.45pm. But thatContinue reading “THE HOUSING MACHINE THAT NOBODY ORDERED”
Cornovii Part 3 – When the Paper Trail Starts to Sweat
There comes a moment in every local local government saga when the spreadsheets begin to twitch, the meeting minutes start to shift uncomfortably in their folders, and the once-confident PowerPoint warriors develop an unexpected fondness for the phrase “commercially sensitive.” For Cornovii, that moment is now Because while Shropshire Council continues its noble tradition ofContinue reading “Cornovii Part 3 – When the Paper Trail Starts to Sweat”
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”
Cornovii: Building Success? Or Just Building Debt?
Cornovii: The Council That Built a Company, Hid the Books, and Lost the Architects Since 2020, Shropshire Council’s Housing Supervisory Board has met more than a dozen times to discuss Cornovii. Each meeting began with the same ritual: “That the press and public be excluded.” Now the doors are still closed, the loans still rising,Continue reading “Cornovii: Building Success? Or Just Building Debt?”
The Elephant Has Company: Cornovii and the House of Cards
Welcome to Shropshire, where the houses are public, the risks are private, and the only thing commercial is the branding. Let me introduce you to Cornovii Developments Ltd, Cornovii Investments Ltd, and STAR Housing — a trilogy of publicly owned entities with overlapping leadership, shared liabilities, and a striking ability to shuffle assets faster thanContinue reading “The Elephant Has Company: Cornovii and the House of Cards”
Shropshire Council’s Elephant in the Room
The beast arrives, sits on your wallet, and asks for a tip. Let’s talk about the animal nobody’s feeding but everyone’s funding.It’s grey, immovable — and financed on your credit card. The new pastime Shropshire has a new pastime: building houses with your land and your money, then calling it “commercial”. The developer has aContinue reading “Shropshire Council’s Elephant in the Room”
Lions Led by Donkeys in Shropshire
Article 4: The Safety Catch They Refuse to Pull Shropshire residents dared to believe their Council might actually protect them. They asked, quite reasonably: “Please, use an Article 4 Direction to stop our town being carved into overcrowded HMOs.” Article 4, for the uninitiated, is dead simple: it takes away the automatic right for landlordsContinue reading “Lions Led by Donkeys in Shropshire”