Unitary Council for Shropshire

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 28th Jul 2007

After much discussion, and a lot of local misinformation, the Minister finally approved the bid for a Unitary Council for Shropshire, which will replace the present County Council and the five district and borough councils in the county. A new Interim Board with 16 members is being created to make decisions about the implementation. It is important that this Board is seen to be truly representative of existing councils, and political parties. It must not be seen to be a 'take-over' by the County Council with a monopoly of its Conservative Cabinet.

Parish and Town Councils need to be actively involved in making sure that the new area committees reflect the interests of their local communities and have a constructive role in decision making. 27 of these committees are proposed, and parishes in those areas will need to work together to get the maximum benefit for their residents. There is no suggestion that parish councils should be merged or combined in any way to achieve this outcome.

It is to be hoped that the rearguard action by Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council to halt the proceedings, by means of a Judicial Review hearing in September will fail. In two years, the opposition never came up with a fully costed and viable alternative for an 'Enhanced Two-tier System' that could deliver the same efficiencies and savings as would be required by the government. If they were to succeed, it would mean higher Council Tax and loss of services.

In 2006, only one of the 43 parishes in Shrewsbury & Atcham was contested, the rest having difficulty in achieving a full complement of councillors. So SABC cannot claim a 'democratic deficit' when it does nothing to encourage local representation. Under the unitary proposals, Shrewsbury would in any case have a new Town Council based at Frankwell. In 2007 many of the district and parish seats in the county were not contested, so a reduction in the total number of Shropshire councillors could regenerate interest and competition for seats in the future.