Shropshire Council - Answers Please?
The biggest advantage of having your own website is that you can write so much, about so many different things, and it is out there for the world to read; whether they do or not, of course, is a different story.
My blogs and posts won’t be all whinging and moaning; in fact, I’m hoping many won’t be. However, being 63 from 1963, it is a bit difficult at times with what I see in today’s society. And so, I’m being honest, and this is a whinge and a criticism, and it is directed at Shropshire Council and how I believe their directors and senior managers should take more responsibility for decisions they make when spending our money and give us explanations when we ask for them, but who fail to do so.
In fact, when I was e-mailing their directors about their failings and poor service, I was told to stop contacting them, or I would be blocked. Fancy being responsible directors and managers who don’t want to hear the opinions of your paying customers! I don’t like that attitude, especially as we have just recently had our Council Tax increased for next year. As an ex-senior manager, my philosophy was if you can’t take criticism, don’t take the wage! We all learn from constructive criticism, which I believe it was and this is.
But let’s start with money. Shropshire Council is on the verge of going bankrupt, or is already there, and that is no secret. Any internet search will tell you that the Council has been awarded £192.8m in Government loans over the next two years, and that was published as recently as 23rd February 2026! But as I am no financial expert, can someone please tell me how borrowing nearly £200m when you are going bankrupt can help you, as I am lost, or is it simply to carry on providing a service?
But worse than that, who is responsible for the spending of the council? Well, that responsibility, in my opinion lies with the senior financial director(s) and management; there can be no-one else
Going bankrupt doesn’t happen overnight; in an authority this size, it takes years and years. Why wait until you need to borrow nearly £200m to try to put your finances straight? But it does. In my logical world, if you are having to borrow that amount of money, it can’t be getting you out of debt, as you will have to pay it back. I must admit I wish I did know more, especially with that council tax increase for no added service, or none that I can see.
A search also tells us that ‘the Council has told that its spiralling financial situation could leave residents paying off hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of debt for decades to come.’ Yet in my opinion they have money to waste, and let me explain why, or at least something that contributes to their poor financial management, albeit at quite a low level. But who knows, or who remembers that saying, ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves,' and that is a proverb advising that managing small expenses and savings leads to significant wealth over time! (Or assume money savings too!)
It’s all to do with road and pavement repairs. Yet when I mentioned to the Council in one of my emails that the West Midlands (our area) had been given millions of pounds in extra funding to repair roads, I was told not to believe what you read in the public domain, yet the information came from the Gov.UK website – so who do I believe, my Council or my Government? Well, as I pointed out to them, actually at this moment in time, neither!
It started when I asked for our street pavements to be resurfaced. Where we live, we have many residents of more senior years, and the potholes were becoming dangerous, and the street was a mess. The aesthetics are important. Who wants to live on a street where the pavements are uneven, different colours, and dangerous to the residents and that are not repaired to the standard guidelines that your local council provides to you?
However, I suggested that as all the pavements didn’t need resurfacing, they could maybe do blocks, so yes, two different colours, but on this occasion, better than a patchwork quilt-type design with potholes filled here and there and then maybe not at all!
To start with, Shropshire Council wants everyone to report any road and pavement issues on a portal called ‘Fix My Street,’ and I have to admit it is a very good user-friendly method of reporting problems, as there are many more issues we can report, including cultivating or planting on a verge, electric vehicle infrastructure issues, lifebelt/lifebuoy problems right through to potholes or surface problems, and everything in between!!
If you need to report a road or highway issue that falls under the Council's authority, the initial recorded message will ask you to go to ‘fix my street.’
So being the good loyal council taxpayer that I am, I reported my pavement issues on the appropriate portal, and then I did it again, then again, and who knows, maybe one more time, or three for good luck! And you couldn’t make the next bit up. Someone came round with their tin of white spray paint and marked up the relevant potholes to be repaired when we were away in the motorhome. Now I must admit at this stage I will say that if you are in the same situation, I would never suggest that you buy a tin of white spray paint to add to what is already done to get more repairs carried out - please don’t!
And so here goes with my photographs from AFTER the repairs had been carried out. And let’s face it, it is poor; my photos were going to show a yellow dot pointing out what is still a pothole, but do I need to, as I think it’s quite obvious? The repairs are aesthetically poor, of poor quality, and contradictory to their own guidelines, and with that description I believe I am being kind – but have a look!
Their own guidelines state that on a pavement, potholes will be repaired if they are deeper than 20 mm. I’ll let you decide which one is more than 20 mm, as I believe it is quite obvious, but still no repair.
In my opinion the repair standards are absolutely ridiculous; they told me that dangerous potholes and trip hazards had been repaired, but by repairing the pavements they had created other trip hazards by leaving the tarmac they had placed at higher levels to the existing pavements (hope that makes sense.)
Either way, it was totally unacceptable, but another couple of points. When repairing the potholes once again, I was away in the motorhome; however, a neighbour asked if they could fill in a pothole outside their elderly dad’s house, and the repair guys said yes, but they didn’t bother, or couldn’t be bothered. Another neighbour asked the same, and the guys said, ‘no, there were no white lines around the pothole’ – remember, don’t ever get your own paint.
My friend living in the street was chatting to the workers, and during the conversation it came to light that the contractors had travelled all the way from Preston to do the work, a round trip of some 200 miles, probably about 5 hours driving!! Now, whatever sector you work in, we all know that time and diesel/petrol, amongst other overheads is money, and whatever contract you have, that cost is factored into the job. How much additional cost is that to us, the taxpayer, who has very little choice other than to give our council our hard-earned money?
People may argue and say those costs are factored into the agreed contract, but anyone submitting a quote for work and knowing this might happen will take all these possibilities into consideration, and that money will be added into any potential contract – hidden or not?
So why am I whinging in this post? Simply because just around the corner from us, the pavements have all been smoothly resurfaced. No patchwork quilt effect, no potholes left open, no council-made trip hazards, just a nice smooth pavement, and looking good too. As you can see from the photos, 100 of yards after 100 of yards of lovely surfaced pavement that I cannot see was ever asked for. Though I will say at this stage, credit Shropshire Council for a job well done!
I can see on older reports for the area where residents reported a street light not working, one requesting a salt box, another requesting a salt box be filled, one for a replacement street sign, and one for a pothole in the road – but nothing for pavement repairs.
Am I right to think at this moment you are asking, ‘what’s wrong with that?’ Well, according to my search, these pavements were NOT reported on the ‘fix my street’ portal. Now, if I am criticising, I also need to be honest. I can’t find the reports in older posts on the portal, yet I can still see the old reports I submitted for my street, even though, according to the Council, the work has been finished – if only.
It’s at this point I ask Shropshire Council to justify the spending and why they have carried out these repairs, and how did they know about the problems, problems that seemingly didn’t even exist, according to the portal of their choice! And these pavements are very local to me; I walk them 2–3 times each week, and they did not need all this work doing, or all that money spending.
Who knows, maybe there is a local resident that has connections with the council, and instead of going through the official portal, they can just have a word in someone’s ear in the canteen at work? Is that possible? Well, of course it’s possible, and please remember at this stage I am not saying it happened; I am just saying it is possible!
So, the Council has surfaced pavements, or certainly stretches of pavements that didn’t need repairing or money spending and which may not have been reported, yet they leave our street in the condition they have, after communication that fell on deaf ears, and I’m sorry, but those standards are just not acceptable.
So, where does the money wasting come into this? Well, I appreciate there are no specifics in this post, but there will be in part 2, which will follow soon.
Thanks for reading
DJ
