So it looks likely Shropshire will get a unitary authority to manage its affairs now Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council has all but said it’s time to throw in the towel in its legal challenge against such a move, writes our News Blogger David Burrows.

A legal challenge which is believed to have cost more than £200,000. But don’t worry council tax payers of the county town, for I am pretty sure I have helped pay for most of that myself from the fines I have been paying for having the audacity, nay downright cheek, to park my car outside my own home.

However, ParkRight is a partnership with the district councils and the county council, so I may have actually paid the latter’s £48,000 fee instead.

See, I apparently pay my council tax for . . . nope, can’t think of a thing.

I had a letter the other day telling me I would soon be getting my new boxes for recycling. Which is good.

Quite where I’ll put them in my pokehole of a flat is anyone’s guess. Next to the wheelie bin I suppose. Oh, no. Hold on, I don’t have one of those either.

So for my council tax I have to park my car approximately a mile away (leaving it subject to car crime) and leave all my rubbish in my flat, up to the point where I have to take it to Battlefield myself to recycle what I
can and throw away what I can’t.

So I’ll be interested to see what happens when a single council comes in. Will that have any impact on the officious, sorry, efficient, ParkRight people? Presumably not.

Will I be able to put my rubbish out for someone else to take away (and therefore not have a car that smells like a landfill)? I’ll wait and see.

In the meantime I might just give ParkRight a couple of hundred quid now. Just so I don’t have to keep buying new shoes for the walk from my car to my home.