Letter: Save money by scrapping Telford’s council
Monday 26th July 2010, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: Regarding the headline on the front page of the Shropshire Star on July 19 “Council facing £4 million cuts over spending curb”.
I would point out that East Dorset Council and Christchurch Council have made positive moves to save money. Among other things they have decided to have only one chief executive.
The socialists created Telford & Wrekin Council in order to create jobs that were already covered by Shropshire County Council, also to preserve their Labour majority. They had no regard for the cost to the people of Telford.
The whole thing was a total waste of Telford people’s money.
If Councilor Andrew Eade and all of the councillors swallowed their pride, they would put the interests of Telford people first, disband the council and return to the county authority.
Shropshire County Council ran the county, including Telford, for many years. There is no reason why the county authority cannot run it now.
This would save many millions of pounds for the local people, not only this year but also every year.
Tom Williams
Sutton Hill
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Telfords council is Tory run, i as a Telford Resident and living in Shropshires most populated Town would like the Telford to control its own money affairs and as a Taxpayer would want my cash put into Telford and not some suberb of ScrewsYoubury which is where most would end up.
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Spoken like a true chav :-)
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I doubt the people of telford would be happy with the increase in council tax to Shropshire levels.
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To be honest I’d rather have T&WC delivering our public services in Telford than Shropshire Council. The Building Schools for the Future project has been safeguarded in Telford because of the way in which the authority has gone about the project. I get the impression (as nothing more than a council tax payer) that my council tax IS being spent prudently. I don’t see the same level of cuts being proposed by SCC. The character and needs of Telford are very different from those of the predominantly rural remainder of Shropshire – having a unitary authority, that spends what it collects (I know this is a bit of an over-simplification) is the better system.
As far as I know, Shropshire County Council never (in recent history at least) “ran” what is now Telford. Wrekin Council was created by the Conservative’s 1972 Local Govt. Act, prior to that Wellington, Dawley etc boroughs delivering some services and SCC covering the wider strategic provision such as education, health and social services. We also had the Development Corporation as an additional unelected 3rd tier of local government.
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what would a bunch of farmers from ludlow know about running inner city telford ? no this is not the way forward but more joint working and commission especially on back office function would be prudent
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Inner city, Shane? No, Telford is not inner city. Far too nice for that!
Though I feel Shropshire is too big to be governed by one council.
There are parts of Shropshire where the first language is Welsh, not English. And on the other side of Shropshore in the Staffordshire border, it is as if you are in the Potteries, almost.
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Just out of interest, where exactly in Shropshire is the first language Welsh? I ask out of curiosity as I have never known of such a place! Furthermore, if shropshire is too big to be governed by one council, why is Telford & Wrekin considered the area that deserves devolved powers??
PS: Telford is not too nice to be considered an ‘inner city’, it shouldn’t be considered that because it’s not a city at all!
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Why does Shropshire need to run Telford and Wrekin? We were always ‘second fiddle’ to Shrewsbury, when we have the largest population centre in Shropshire.
Telford is a highly urbanised area unlike the rest of the county and needs run its own affairs. Anyway a lot of services are in actual fact still shared between the two authorities or at least jointly run.
What about Telford and Wrekin running Shropshire instead? Discuss.
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Because ‘the rest’ is a damn sight larger than Telford and Wrekin, neither of which are the county town so under what assumption could T&W be considered to be the most important part of the county to warrant it running the rest?!
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Does Mr Williams think his Sutton Hill regeneration project would be taking place if the Authority was Shropshire Council ? This chap is obviously just another one of this areas self appointed know it all moansters with uninformed, unintelligent opinions who has no idea of the dynamics and focus of Local Authorities and therfore what is actually good for him
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Don’t shout too loud or the ConDems will have you running it as an unpaid volunteer in betwen time when your running the NHS, your local company school, sweeping the streets and mending the roads. OK we don’t like the mega-Quangos that NuLab created and the expensive pen-penpushers, who checked everything and over-charged for it.
What the ‘Broke-back’ boys want to create is ‘Britain on the cheap’ (and nasty) “We’re all in this together” anther quote “Yeh, whatever!” A lot of money will be wasted and a lot of what we take for granted and want will be gone.
Actually – if there was a single administration – lets not include the current names and just go for “Salop County Council” ;-) there – no problems with that is there? (OK stop swearing, I was joking).
Maybe increase the parish councils and have a county-wide government from these representatives? Parish councillors taking turns to take part in ‘central’ government. Not thought-through but how about more ideas.
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i would rather have sabc back they were a bit leaner and less beaurocratic but yes if given the option i would be happy for telford to run things in shropshire they would do a better job than shropshire county council are making of it, atleast they listen to the people and they have the sense to say no to incineration in their area
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Has nobody recognised that Shropshire County Council no longer exists?!
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Isn’t having two unitary authorities a bit of a contradiction in terms?
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no one wants complete merger but things like highways which are cross border anyway should obviously merge, what we need is a joint cheif exec, that would enable so much more joint working and co-operation on the ground and break down all rivalries and barriers
id certainly like to see shropshire council get tax down to the level of telford too but i understand this is due to subsidy from central government, labour government gave more to urban labour areas hence council tax in places like sunderland is a few hundred pounds per annum in rural oxfordshire or shropshire its nearly £2000 thats their redistrubive nonsence assuming were all rich in rural areas. hopefully the new coalition will redistribute more money to rural councils who need it and make the cities pay their own way as they have better income generation potential via their retail premises, business waste collection, leisure and car parking assets
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trust me telfordians, i live in shrewsbury, you DONT want shropshire county council anywhere near your services, they couldnt organise a Pӣ$ up in a brewery and the taxes are well high, the beaurocracy would make the indian raj look tame,
the whole place is full of managers most are on $40-50 k a year and you can see BMW and mercedes all over the shire hall car park, meanwhile they cut services and raise taxes every year!
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Didn’t realise council employees were paid in dollars! oh well, you learn something new every day.
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We don’t want Telford thanks very much – give it to Wolverhampton!
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We don’t want Shrewsbury thanks very much – give it (back) to Wales!
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they could be run by anyone and it wouldnt really matter its all contracted out these days any how, i agree that both councils should be retained but they should share pay roll, hr, cheif execs etc
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id rather have telford and wrekin running bin services because they do a better job at least they collect ALL plastics not a half job like shropshire council does
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What an inspired thought however , would it not be a better propsal for t&w to take over shropshire council. To be blunt SC still prefer ink and quills.
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I know broken biros are preferred in Teford as its a lot less hassle when signing for your giro!
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Most people here are missing the point. What we need to do is get this country out of the mess Labour have left us in. Any realistic savings should be considered; whether it be joint working with Shropshire Council or something else. Any ideas are better than none, or the unhelpful petty differences some people seem to have between Telford and the rest of Shropshire.
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correction ts, labour saved this country, the bankers in the USA caused the debt
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Raymondo, How you manage to even think that labour saved this country is way beyond any rational thinking, you seem to be living in your own little bubble with the odd visit from the fairies at the bottom of your garden. I see that you have no view on the actual question raised!
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Tsotsi,
I think it worth putting our current debt into some context. Given the distorting effect of historical and future inflation on any cash figures, the most reliable means of judging debt level is by comparison with our GDP.
We currently have a debt to GDP ratio of about 62%. This is higher than average, but not as high as it has been in relatively recent decades – for example, in Harold Macmillan’s era of the late 50′s it was at around 100%.
The banking crisis, caused by the risk-taking and irresponsiblity of bankers, whom I would suggest were not likely to have been natural Labour supporters, accounts directly for approximately half (30%) of the aforementioned 62%, leaving a net debt that might be attributable to the last government of some 32%.
This is a little higher than the previous Tory regime got it down to (circa 24%) but then again Labour have invested large amounts in the NHS and Education, rather than running these down in favour of tax cuts for the rich.
So you can see that the current debt crisis is being over-hyped. In some cases this is simply to provide news, but increasingly it’s being done to impose ideologically-driven cuts to our public services.
If (and it’s a big ‘if’ under the current government) the banking recovery is managed in such a way that protects the public purse rather than the private pockets of bankers, we will get down to historically-manageable levels of debt with relatively little pain.
The danger is that we cut too quickly and too deeply, causing a further recession.
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Peter, that is all very interesting. But I do wonder which website you gleaned that rather lengthy bit of twaddle from? The cold hard facts are all around us; mounting debt and a rather shakey society/country. I can only tell it like it is. I don’t get off on quoting other peoples words, just my own! Try it sometime when you get the confidence to.
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Tsotsi,
You’re right,my previous information is interesting, but above all, it’s factual.
The information I’ve quoted comes from the Office for National Statistics, and is not disputed by politicians of any party, not by any serious economists of whatever persuasion – so hardly ‘twaddle’ as you suggest.
Your views (I really can’t stretch the point and call them facts) appear instead to come from the propaganda of the Murdoch press and the Tory party.
Perhaps you could respond with some facts, qouting your sources as I have done, rather than childish insults next time? If you dispute my figures on GDP and debt – by all means provide your own.
Your perception of debt seems to be based upon a perception of personal hardship and insecurity, which is commonplace enough at present, but the reality is that this hardship and insecurity is principally caused by a fundamental imbalance in our economy,and the related financial power base, which remains this: 95% of the wealth in this country is owned by just 5% of the people.
As long as we only tackle debt by splitting hairs over the 5% of wealth the rest of us own, and leave the 95% of wealth protected in the hands of the richest folk in the country, we’ll always have that perception of hardship.
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No they did’nt!!
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Ummm… they did. All those mortgages, given away when rates were low to people Stateside who couldn’t afford the repayments when the rates went back up. All those collateralised debt obligations that proved to be worthless. Bundles of debt sold from one bank to another, then to another. Reckless credit card spending by consumers, and a lack of saving. Don’t you remember?
Your visceral hatred of the Labour Party is clouding your judgement. Sure, they made (a lot of) mistakes, but to blame Labour for everything is ridiculous. I suppose Black Tuesday in 1992 was Labour’s fault as well? And I’m sure I saw Gordon Brown on the Titanic.
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As a matter of fact Tsotsi you are plain wrong, the bankers did cause the recession because of the US Sub Prime Loan scenario which started all this off and remember in 1997 when labour came in they spent the first 5 years paying down tory debt to the lowest ever levels of public debt in a long time
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No Edward, you are the one who is sadly misguided. Who sold off a hefty proportion of the uk’s gold reserves in the 1990′s for next to nothing, Mr. Brown the socialist peoples champion, that’s who. His handling of the uk’s economy was in one simple word, criminal!
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Tsotsi,
Your grasp of the current economic situation is shaky, to say the least.
The reduction in gold reserves has nothing to do with it – you might just as well blame it on the selling off of our public utilities in the 1980s at a knock-down price – it’s a complete non-sequitur.
This was a crisis caused by irresponsible, and in the case of the debt left with RBS by Goldman Sachs, fraudulent, activity on the part of capitalist bankers. You simply cannot deny that – the facts are there for all to see.
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u mean BANKERS
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i agree Labour did a very good job stopping us dying completely in that crash, it was the bankers fault and in the long term i think we will get all the money back with profit
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I TOTALLY AGREE THAT TSTOSI DOESNT HAVE A CLUE BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THAT BROWN SAVED THE UK FROM BANKRUPTCY WITH HIS PROMPT ACTIONS TO SAVE US FROM THE BANKS GOD BLESS HIM
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Mr. Butler, What is the weather like on the planet ZANUSI?
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Mr. Butler, Its you that hasn’t got a clue. If Brown was so heroic, then why wasn’t he and his peoples party re-elected recently? God bless you!
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telford is a city, shropshire is rural, yes they can share back office functions and vehicles and things but they must always be independantly run by the people for the people
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Correction Telford is NOT a city, city status is granted by the queen, as far as I can remember Sunderland and Wolverhampton were the last towns to be given city status. sorry you are again wrong! independently NOT independantly!!
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trust me telfordians you’d be better off joining staffs or wolverhampton if you;re depserate, shropshire council would only drag you down
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No.Democracy is worth paying for, even in a recession.
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ive got a better idea. Scrap Shropshrie Council and let telford run things, they do a far better job there
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Nah – we need a council used to running towns & suburbs – not one that’s just looked after a shopping mall & ice rink. Chavtastic!
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IT WOULD MAKE SENSE TO SHARE SOME CROSS BORDER SERVICES MORE; –
I WOULD SAY BUSES, HIGHWAY MAINTENENCE, ADOPTION, SCHOOLS WOULD FALL INTO THIS CATEGORY, ALSO ALL THE HIGH LEVEL STRATEGY, COMMUNICATIONS, PR, HR, IT AND BACK OFFICE STUFF LIKE STRATEGIC PLANNING SHOULD BE INTERGRATED INTO A SINGLE TEAM. THERE IS THE OLD SUGAR BEAT FACTORY IN ALLSCOTT WHICH IS PERFECTLY EQUIDISTANT BETWEEN SHREWSBURY AND TELFORD WOULD MAKE FOR A PERFECT JOINT HQ
BUT FRONTLINE SERVICES LIKE WASTE COLLECTION AND STREET SCENE SHOULD ALWAYS BE MANAGED LOCALLY
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I kindly suggest you find the Caps Lock key on your keyboard. And press it (once).
Cheers.
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