Recent Meeting of Shifnal Town Council

Shifnal Town Council met on Thursday 19th November to discuss a range of matters concerning the Town.

As usual, Shropshire Councillors receive questions from the Town Councillors. These are normally submitted in advance, to provide us with an opportunity to obtain full responses from officers where necessary. On this occasion I was asked two questions.

Firstly, regarding the Garden Village at Junction 3 and whether Shropshire Council had invited Bradford Estates to present their case before a Committee on 15th October after the consultation period. The response I received was misleading, claiming that this was not the case. I am following this up again as there is documented evidence, including a PowerPoint presentation, that Bradford Estates in fact did make a presentation to the Great Shropshire Outdoors Committee and was witnessed by several local parish councillors.

The second question related to the local plan review process, and given the current pandemic restrictions, that it would be wise for cabinet to pause the process. Secondly that if the cabinet do intend to press ahead with its Regulation 19 consultation after its meeting in December, that I ask cabinet to agree a 12-week consultation period not starting until the New Year to enable a more effective engagement with consultees during the current pandemic restrictions.

Following the meeting and further correspondence, I have used a form of words provided by Cllr. Tarren to ask Shropshire Council’s cabinet the following question:

“The CPRE have received a response from Eddie West, Shropshire Council’s planner in charge of the Review, confirming that the Pre-Submission Plan will be going to Cabinet on the 7th December and if agreed, will “lead to a consultation starting in mid-December for at least 6 weeks in line with the requirements of Reg 19” This means that if Shropshire Council stick to the proposed 6-week consultation period, most of the time will be during the Christmas break when Councils are closed and the public have other things on their mind. As Councils also have to publish meetings a week in advance, it will in effect give us little more than 2 weeks to read and digest all the documentation, prepare and agree a response and then send it out. Although  with the last consultation we were able to just send out one response, as comments this time go to the Inspector, it is likely we will need to send out separate responses for each individual objection, which will considerably increase the administrative task in responding and yet again eat into the 6 week period. It is interesting to compare the proposed 6 week consultation for what is likely to be a large amount of documentation to read with other consultations being carried out by Shropshire. They are for instance consulting on the Statement of Community Involvement for 12 weeks for a 27-page document, a Community and Rural Strategy for 8 weeks for a 22-page document and a Cultural Strategy for 12 weeks for a 33-page document. Eddie West has not said when they will be publishing response to the last consultation as they are legally obliged to do.”

Local parish and county councillors are extremely unhappy with the proposals being put forward by Shropshire Council, and by the limited responses received from officers as well as cabinet members.

It is critical that Shropshire Council run a fair and transparent consultation process that considers the views of local people, takes into account the unique nature of Shropshire and its Green Belt as well as the already damaging developments that have taken place in Shifnal.