Here is a summary of the things I have been up to this week:
More Inductions at Shropshire Council
On Monday, I attended a ‘Meet the Executive Team’ induction, which provided a breakdown of the new council structure and what the executive team wanted to achieve. Many of the old executive team had left before the election.
Some of the key takeaways from the induction:
- Savings required this year: £57m
- Reserves: £5m (audit says SC should have £15-20m)
- CIL money: £30m unspent
- Overspend: projected to be £34m. One department accounted for almost half of that.
- The last admin borrowed £26.9m in March to avoid bankruptcy and balance the budget. That will cost £1.3m in interest a year from the council’s revenue.
- The previous council engaged Price Waterhouse Coopers to identify savings, but PWC costs the council £17,000 a day. Many of the existing savings identified aren’t achievable.
Surface Dressing site visit
I popped out to see the contractors putting down the surface dressing between West Felton and Queens Head to get their take on the work before heading to Shrewsbury for a Highways briefing.
Highways briefing
Most of Tuesday morning was spent at a briefing on Highways issues. I asked about surface dressing in light of the above work, with two-thirds of the work being a waste. Takeaways:
- Surface Dressing is now being done on newer road surfaces to keep them in top shape at a lower cost. This is different from what common sense would say. I will discuss this in more detail in a future post.
- Traffic Regulation Orders and adopting new roads from development now have a 2-year backlog.
West Felton Parish Council
On Tuesday evening, I attended West Felton PC’s annual meeting both as a member and as my first time as their County link Councillor. Thank you to my colleagues on the parish council for the warm reception and congratulations I received on my election win.
Strangely, lots of issues relevant to Shropshire Council came up, including the above. Providing members with a report was good—they barely received reports over the previous four years.
Informal Cabinet meeting with officers
On Wednesday Morning, I joined other Cabinet members for a joint session with the Local Government Association and the officer executive team. The meeting was to discuss some general parameters going forward and scope out the cabinet roles.
Afterwards the new team posed for this photo as the news was fully announced. Read more details about the cabinet here: Picked for Cabinet: Planning Portfolio
Induction at Oswestry Town Council
You may be surprised to learn that I was also elected to Oswestry Town Council. On Wednesday evening, I joined members for the Town Clerk’s induction into the council and its operations.
Casework
Again, Planning issues have dominated this week. On Tuesday afternoon, I checked out the finished surface dressing and then went to see if BTOpenreach had carried out any repairs to the overhead fibre line on Twyford Lane. The fallen tree limb seemed to be leaning further onto the cable compared to my last visit. I passed that on to BT again when I returned home.
coming up next week…
Next week is a busy week with:
- More inductions,
- Oswestry Town Council Mayor Making,
- Meeting with Whittington Parish Clerk to discuss priorities in the parish,
- Whittington Parish Annual Coucil meeting for which I have sent my apologies as it clashed with West Felton’s Annual Parish Meeting,
- Oswestry Town Council’s adjourned annual meeting which I have apologised for as that clashes with Whittington Parish Council’s Annual Parish Meeting,
- Shropshire Council Annual Council meeting, 3 Lib Dems county group meetings, and a tour of the Guildhall to meet staff.
