Or: how Shropshire Council managed to bankrupt public confidence before it quite finished bankrupting itself There is a point in every public scandal where the official language collapses under the sheer weight of its own dishonesty. We are well past that point in Shropshire. The question is no longer whether councils are under pressure. TheyContinue reading “WHY?”
Tag Archives: politics
The Great British Farm Tax Fudge
Three Ways Starmer Can Lose the Countryside Labour’s farm inheritance tax changes have now reached the High Court, not because anyone in Westminster suddenly discovered a conscience, but because farmers say the Government failed to consult properly before meddling with family succession. For Shropshire, where farming is woven into the county’s economy and identity, theContinue reading “The Great British Farm Tax Fudge”
Cornovii and the Comfort Blanket Committee
Cornovii Developments Ltd is Shropshire Council’s wholly owned housing company, set up in 2019 amid talk of housebuilding, quality control and financial return. It was presented as a bold instrument of delivery and a sensible bit of municipal enterprise. It has since acquired the more familiar local-government aroma of opacity, mission drift and soothing quarterlyContinue reading “Cornovii and the Comfort Blanket Committee”
Planning for Profit
Who Shropshire’s Housebuilding Boom Is Really For There is something almost touching about the way large housing developments are sold to the public in Shropshire. A field is selected. A map appears. A developer starts speaking in that warm, managerial tone about “meeting need”. Councillors murmur about “balance”. Officers reach for policy references and beginContinue reading “Planning for Profit”
A History of Oswestry Councils from 2009 Democracy or Democrazy?
I thought it may be fun to look back at the defining moments of Oswestry’s political history. How time flies when you are entangled by local government. Fifteen years after Oswestry’s old borough council was shovelled into the dustbin and unitary Shropshire took over, the town has seen Conservatives, Greens, Lib Dems and independents allContinue reading “A History of Oswestry Councils from 2009 Democracy or Democrazy?”
Cornovii: The Supervisors, the Directors, and the Question That Will Not Go Away
At yesterday’s Shropshire Council meeting, a question from a member of the public, Andrew Sceats cut through several years of carefully managed explanation surrounding Cornovii Developments Ltd. Mr Sceats asked why many residents had been left with the impression that Shropshire Council would receive financial returns from Cornovii not only through land sales, but alsoContinue reading “Cornovii: The Supervisors, the Directors, and the Question That Will Not Go Away”
The Elephant Is Still in the Room
How Decisions You Never Saw Became Bills You Cannot Avoid This is not an insider discussion. It is not a conversation for those already steeped in council papers and committee minutes. This is about understanding how decisions made quietly over years eventually arrive as very visible costs for residents. What follows is not theory. ItContinue reading “The Elephant Is Still in the Room”
Cornovii: The Risk Nobody Can Quite Find
Every council has meetings.Some have strategies.Some have visions.A few even have plans. What they are supposed to have, particularly when tens of millions of pounds of public borrowing are involved, is a clear understanding of risk. Recently, a Freedom of Information request asked Shropshire Council to produce exactly that: the documentation showing its financial exposureContinue reading “Cornovii: The Risk Nobody Can Quite Find”
WHEN TRANSPARENCY MEETS REALITY
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”
Transparency at the Local Council
Now With Added Devolution, Fewer Services, and Even Less Memory Local councils are, we are endlessly assured, champions of transparency. This is said often, confidently, and usually just after something significant has happened without anyone quite noticing. Transparency, in the modern council sense, does not mean visibility. That would invite questions. Instead, it means thatContinue reading “Transparency at the Local Council”