I see the County Junta, sorry Council are now clear to push ahead with regional control. I was just looking at their website and a page about their web statistics made me smile. They list how many page views, unique visitors, etc. Then they print “Comments from September 2007”, as well as August and July. All comments are glowing praise for the site. Clearly nobody ever sent them any criticisms about their site because it is so perfect.

Strangely, I emailed them a couple of months ago to ask how to use a section of the site that I needed to use that did not appear to be working. I received the automated response saying that they had my email and would deal with it in due course. Predictably I never received a reply. How foolish of me to point out that a publicly funded service provider was failing to provide me with a service that I required. I was going to put a comment on their web blog but then I remembered, that was quickly removed earlier in the year when people started publishing tricky questions.

I always have been and still am for a unitary authority.

Shame Telford & Wrekin won't be part of it. Then we really could have a united Shropshire.

I think if there was one county council for Shropshire it may be lead from Telford and not Shrewsbury, looking at the disasters the Telford planners have made in designing the 'new' town then I feel that would be catastrophic forthe whole county, let alone Shrewsbury. I think the TDC are far too commercial as time goes by they will go for city status and be the capital of of Shropshire.

Telford can't be the capital of Shropshire as at they are no longer part of the (administrative) county of Shropshire! Telford & Wrekin is a unitary authority and effectively a county in local administration terms.

Telford will one day be a city. But not for a long time. There are loads of other towns in England that deserve city status far more, like Reading, Northampton, Warrington, Watford, Croydon, the list goes on...

Anyway, I would be happy to settle for a united county of Shropshire (i.e. bring Telford & Wrekin back into the fold) with Shrewsbury and Telford as joint administrative centres. Shrewsbury would remain as the county town and Telford as the larger, industrial centre. Pretty much how it is at the moment.

As has been seen with the almighty row over the unitary proposal, those in power don't like giving it up so I can't see it happening. Telford is becoming more like the West Midlands every day so it might be better to let it go it's own way.

Well I dont think council tax payers would be very pleased at the legal fees Shrewsbury Town Council put up even without consultation! :o £400,000 WOW

I think the case was brought jointly with Congleton Borough Council so the cost would be shared. I'd not sure though if £400,000 is the actual cost as the Leader of Shropshire County Council mentioned £600,000 when interviewed. More worrying is the rumour that the Dept of Communities & Local Government against which the case was brought are claiming their costs. If the case goes to the Court of Appeal and maybe then to the House of Lords the mind boggles at the cost if the decision is upheld. Still, it will keep the lawyers happy.

Since most people just say "the Council" and usually don't even know whether they mean a parish/town/district/county level service, I doubt there's really much opposition to the change from the majority. It'll still be "the Council did X" or "the Council failed to do Y", regardless. Only if your local office disappears and someone's forced to travel 25 -30 miles to Shrewsbury to pay a bill / fill in a form will they really notice.

Mind you, technology nowadays means we could just have single-street groups carrying out larger-scale decisions via forums like this one. That would be cool. I can start a turf war with the wretches on Claremont Hill who keep leaving their office lights on night so my back room on St. John's Hill is too light to sleep soundly, by charging a toll to go through the shut between them :)

St John's Hill. Lovely place to live. I'd move there or Quarry Place. Maybe if you write to them suggesting that while it will benefit you by letting you get some sleep, it will also save them money, and the environment. If they ignore you (which they will) the law was changed in 2006 to allow you to complain to the local environmental health office.

I'd live in Quarry Place, but I know for a fact that its basement hideaways (and those on the Crescent, Town Walls) are used by dossers on wet nights. Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for the homeless and for that matter have spent the past few years helping them out from time to time, there are enough dodgy ones for me to be reluctant to live in a place with a troglodyte on the sub-ground floor.

St. John's Hill will be nicer when they finish working on the old theatre, the new housing complex and the former Methodist church. Then I won't get building site noises during the day... :rolleyes:

I read in the Shropshire Star that the Court of Appeal hearing over the unitary business is scheduled for the end of January and is expected to last for more than four weeks. WHAT?

The cost of the application for the judicial review as mentioned above was said to be £400,000 and the hearing took three or four days. Just how much will a hearing lasting more than four weeks cost if the action fails? The mind boggles.

Looks 99% likely to happen now -

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/12/unit...county-approved

Good to see the Sloppy Star getting it right with respect to calling Shropshire a "county of two unitary authorities". Shropshire will consist not only of Shropshire unitary authority but also Telford & Wrekin unitary authority. A simplification of the current set-up in a way.



(one day we'll annexe that rogue "2" bit.. ;) )

Interestingly though, although the new council will be functioning from April '09 the elections to the new council won't be until May '09 (when we would have had county council elections anyway). Not sure how that works, but I'm sure some civil servant in Whitehall has figured something out...

http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/16287

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but where did you hear this from? I've never noticed dossers in the basements, but I'd be interested to know what has been happening elsewhere.