Over the past month, I’ve continued to devote a significant amount of time to Whittington, where planning pressures, highways concerns, enforcement issues and community enquiries have remained particularly active.
Casework
This month I’ve also dealt with a number of highway issues raised by residents—ranging from potholes and surface deterioration to drainage and runoff concerns. Abandoned caravans have been raised with me. I’ve chased progress on parish projects. Road adoption issues have once again taken up a considerable amount of my time. Progress on resolving the wider adoption issue feels closer, but it remains complex and requires careful consideration to avoid exposing the council or residents to risk.
Whittington
After many months of frustration, I seem to have gained some traction with officers on the Burma Road footpath, to the point where I am tackling the right place to unblock progress. Specific enforcement and flytipping issues have been followed up as have a number of issues raised with me. Localised flooding issues have been raised again.
West Felton
I’ve chased National Highways about the surface condition of the Fox Lane footbridge again. Progressed the new streetlight on the Avenue and fed that back to the parish clerk. Localised flooding issues have been raised again.
Portfolio holder work
I facilitated a meeting with officers and key members to develop a stronger policy on Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes (SUDS) to ensure rainfall runoff is properly managed on-site for new developments. Constantly adding new run-off into poor drainage systems is not sustainable, particularly given the government’s high mandatory housing targets for Shropshire. This runoff exacerbates pothole problems if rainwater sits on the roads. Several strategic meetings have taken place over the last few weeks as part of the build-up to the new local plan.
Visited Buildwas and the Bentall Grange development with council Leader, Heather Kidd, at the beginning of March to see how the development is progressing.
Progress on the Local Plan has been frustrated by the government passing secondary legislation. This was just passed. So now proper progress can be made soon. At present it is anticipated that Shropshire Council will give notice to commence the new Local Plan in April. I attended 2 days of training on the new 30-month local plan framework at Warwick University provided by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Planning Advisory Service (PAS).
With record-high rainfall this winter, most of the country has seen an explosion of potholes. Despite this, in January 2026, Shropshire Council repaired 2,113 potholes compared to 1,216 in January 2025 – a 77% increase despite the weather. Achieved in part by extending the contract of Multevo, which operates out of Rednal Industrial Estate. From the 1st of April, Multevo’s role will be further extended from A and B roads to include C-class side roads. The shift of resources away from Keir should improve efficiencies and free up capacity to create a team focused on drainage issues, which should help ease localised flooding problems. Shropshire Council had already expanded the Multevo teams by 2. Spending on potholes is due to increase by £1.2m from April 2026 and by a further £5.3m in 2027/28. Since May last year, over 21,000 potholes have been repaired, 25 roads (61km) have been surface dressed, and 41 roads (51km) have been resurfaced.
Shropshire Council has just announced a road repair surge with 72 roads to be surface dressed and another 69 to be resurfaced. Amongst these is surface dressing on the A495 Ellesmere Road. At present, roadworks are underway to repair kerbs, ironwork, and signposts. This should be completed on the 17th. Stud removal on the 8th April, surface dressing on the 7th May, sweeping on 20th May, and white lining begins on the 26th of May. Preventative works like this are important to minimise reactive spend on pothole repairs. Since May, we have doubled the budget on preventative works.
On the budget front, the Government recognised the shortcomings of the financial settlement we received from them – a 12% reduction compared to rises in urban areas like Telford. But rather than give us the money we needed, they said we could raise council tax by 8.99% instead and granted our request for Exceptional Financial Support. EFS isn’t a Government bailout but is more like an overdraft facility. This must be repaid with interest. So, it is imperative that this money is used wisely to transform council services, cut costs and increase income. Equally important is that we only draw down what we need. We still must make record cuts, cutting out nonessential services, but it is good that the Government have confidence in our plans to change the council. So much so that the Government has invited Shropshire Council to participate in a pilot scheme to work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to support and accelerate the Council’s improvement. The pilot seeks to provide additional capacity and expertise, focusing on the financial transformation activity required to achieve a sustainable budget and stabilise the financial position.
Despite the 8.99% rise, Shropshire remains at the low end for Band D compared to other unitary councils: Herefordshire £2067.63; Cheshire West £2076.79; Cheshire East £1975.95; Shropshire £1969.09; Northumberland £2382.00. This Council tax rise will mean that we borrow less from the Government and therefore pay less interest. None of this is easy, and we would rather we hadn’t been left with this mess. For those facing hardship, there is extra support available here:
https://shropshire.gov.uk/council-tax/council-tax-assistance/
Options include paying over 12 months rather than 10 months.
This budget allows the council to recruit extra Revenues and Benefits staff to improve our collection rates and support more people in need. It will also allow us to recruit more officers in legal and planning, who generate income from developers. As well as make the transformations we need to reduce costs and improve service efficiency.
As always, please feel free to get in touch if you need to or drop into one of my advice surgeries on the Third Thursday each month, at the Senior Citizens Hall at 10 am or The Punchbowl at 7 pm.
