Following the Shifnal Town Council Meeting on Thursday 17th October and subsequent correspondence and feedback on social media, I wanted to provide a full statement on the scheme (I have attached the relevant documents to this post). I want to provide members of the public with the background and chronology of the scheme, funding, merits and flaws, and my reasoning in supporting the scheme in the latest vote.
The Scheme itself has always been a project led by Shifnal Town Council (rather than Shropshire Council), using CIL money (Council Infrastructure Levy https://shropshire.gov.uk/planning-policy/community-infrastructure-levy-cil/). The transport scheme was first put forward and initial designs were approved at that time by the Town Council following public consultation over five years ago.
To quote from a colleague on the council, “the basics of the SITS plan were developed by Shifnal Forward (with rightly or wrongly minimal input from the Town Council) in a process that started in about 2013 or may be earlier”.
As some have mentioned the original plan was a shared space concept:
More information is available at Shropshire’s 2014 report that dealt with a public consultation held earlier that year:
This was followed in December 2015 by the consultation event held in the Village Hall
.http://www.shifnalplan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ConsultationBoardsFinallowres.pdf
Several members of the town council and I have since joined and have had to deal with this and other legacy issues. I was elected in 2018 to represent Shifnal South and Cosford and co-opted onto the Town Council shortly afterwards. One of the first meetings I attended was when Councillor Kevin Turley kindly introduced me to the Highways Development Control Area Manager South at Shropshire Council and the project manager from WSP. They explained the original designs to me, and I was told that they had been approved by the Town Council. However, I was taken aback that at that time, in 2018, with the project already over 3 years in progress, no physical works on construction had been undertaken and that the project was in a state of inertia.
Since that time there has been little progress. The Town Council has been in dispute with Shropshire Council over how much money should come from CIL and how much from Shifnal Town Council’s community fund. Shropshire Council redesigned the scheme to bring it within budget. A vote was taken again in January 2020, where further redesigns were requested based on councillor and public feedback. At the time I was concerned that the costs of the design itself and the surveys were more than £500,000 and that these costs would only increase.
The scheme has come back to the Town Council Agenda last Thursday, 17th October 2020. Some amendments were made to the design, the entire cost of it would be taken from CIL monies meaning that the Town Council would not need to use any of its Community Funds for Option 3.
Feedback from the public was obtained, which was negative towards the scheme. However, I must consider all 8,000+ residents of Shifnal. It is my belief is that people want to see money invested into the Town. I am a Shifnal resident of over ten years, and I find the Town centre to be run down and not cared for. I have had to complain to officers and the leader of Shropshire Council several times about lack of maintenance and the state of certain properties. Indeed Cllr. Turley and I pointed out these issues in person to Cllr. Peter Nutting the leader of Shropshire Council and Cllr. Steve Davenport the cabinet member for highways, alongside senior council officers when they visited the Town.
In the words of Henry Hazlitt ““The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” So, it is with our minds eye that we as councillors must envisage the consequence of this decision either way.
To have voted the current proposal down again which would gratify some, but then what?
There is a consequence of not spending CIL money in Shifnal. Firstly, as some have suggested, the project could be re-started, redesigned from scratch. This would incur further costs. Presumably at that point there would be another public survey on the latest design. What would happen then if people were still unhappy? At every iteration, the total sum available to spend on the scheme itself would diminish, meaning that fewer parts of Shifnal could be improved. The argument in absurdum would see this recursive pattern continue indefinitely, resulting in 100% of CIL funds being given to WSP for planning and design and 0% being allocated to the actual construction of the scheme.
Also, imagine the outrage if Shropshire Council were to decide that working with Shifnal has become too difficult and unfeasible and instead they decided to spend £2M on a scheme in Albrighton or another town in Shropshire, or even on Shrewsbury itself!
Is the scheme exactly what I would like? No, and this is the issue I raised at the meeting. It is extremely difficult to design something that every resident will support. We all see flaws in these sorts of schemes, but we must balance them against the merits. I believe the scheme will improve the general state of the Town Centre, which looks uncared for. The Town Council and myself as an individual have received lots of complaints about speeding traffic and the dangers to pedestrians and I think this scheme will improve road safety. As a former car commuter to Coventry I can attest to the terrible junction in Aston Street. I hope that the section 106 money that will be spent there regardless of the approval or not by the Town council will improve traffic flow and change priorities.
This is the first step in improving and developing Shifnal though. If the Aston Street junction fails to improve the situation it can be revisited. I would like the Town to also invest in calming traffic through Church St as Cllr. Day mentioned in the meeting. I would also like to the council use its community fund to improve the town centre itself with new street furniture, litter bins, planting, and artwork. This is a matter that has now been delegated to Shifnal Town Council’s planning committee to get a more detailed cost analysis.
The plan is not for a shared space scheme. There will be no net loss of parking spaces in Shifnal itself. Indeed, there may be opportunities in the future to expand parking in the town. We will have further input into the scheme and its design I am sure before it is finally implemented.
As to my personal interests and incentives: I have none other than the interests of the Town itself. I work in education, I have no business interests in Shropshire, hold no land or property other than my house in Wyke Way. I represent the district of Shifnal South and Cosford which includes Shifnal, Tong, Cosford, Donington and Boscobel and part of Albrighton. I am a member of Shifnal Town council and attend Tong and Donington parish councils (which I will be attending on 20th).
As such I have opposed developments at Junction 3 near Tong, supporting the leader of the Parish, Paul Fisher in his fight against developers. Similarly, I have opposed the developments in Shifnal. Indeed, I am personally affected as one of the parcels of land proposed is directly in front of my house.
I am in regular contact with Peter Nutting and others via telephone and email over Shropshire Council’s Pre-Submission Plan Consultation, repeatedly pointing out that the Green belt should be protected and questioning the ability of Shifnal to cope with any further expansion and I fully supported Cllr. Tarran’s excellent 38-page response to the consultation (https://wordpress.com/post/edwardbird.wordpress.com/165).
I am not against all forms of development. I understand that house prices nationally are very high and I myself struggled to get on the property ladder. My stance has been that developments though should be high quality, incremental, but that we should first improve the infrastructure in Shifnal. I want to protect the green belt surrounding Shifnal, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances. I support the Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority in his bid to convert more brown field sites to be used for housing and employment. Within Shifnal though, I am yet to see any serious justification for why large amounts of land should be allocated to employment when unemployment in the Town is very low and most residents commute to Telford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham either via the M54 or on the train.
I am disappointed that people would question my integrity and those of members of the Town Council. Town Councillors give up their time voluntarily and are unpaid, unlike County Councillors like me that receive an allowance. We pool our collective wisdom such as it is and have a variety of backgrounds. We all live in or around Shifnal and do our best for the town. We welcome new members when there are opportunities to join. I believe that there are currently two vacancies available on the Town Council (https://www.shifnaltowncouncil.gov.uk/STC/news_final.asp?id=362) and hope that in next year’s election that all Councillor’s should be democratically elected. If we have 2/3rds of the council elected rather than co-opted and our town clerk with the relevant qualifications we can as a town council move towards a ‘general power of competency’ which allows us to do more things that we can at the moment. https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/general-power-competence–0ac.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3omhK6rilUuVc8FQpMOUf8kCKyk8FHIN9bCUO7P-sr-8CloKR0b1ENJqo
I have opposed many projects from Shropshire Council and Shifnal Town Council in the past. For example, I was against the purchase of the shopping centres in Shrewsbury, the setting up of a housing company by Shropshire Council, the police station in Shifnal and others. If there is to be a use for taxpayer’s money by the state or government, it should be prioritised for those most in need: children and the elderly. Indeed, over 53% of Shropshire Council’s budget goes on Children’s Services and Adult Social Care, (both costs are rising annually). It is within those constraints that Shropshire Council operates.
In summary, the Town Council, like any organisation operates within financial and legal constraints. We have limited powers, but we do our best and we make our decisions collectively, though at times we disagree over issues. However, I passionately believe that over the medium and long term we will see benefits from SITS and I am pleased that over £2M of CIL will be allocated to Shifnal to improve our Town Centre.
I would be pleased to receive correspondence on this any other matter related to Shifnal and our district at ebirdshropshire@gmail.com.
Edward Bird - Councillor for Shifnal South and Cosford 
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