October 2024
Welcome to my latest Leader Update
Here’s a round-up of some of the latest developments across the council and our beautiful county. I hope it can also help you get involved in shaping the things that matter to you.
Honesty is the best policy
As you will know, we’re in an incredibly difficult position due to our serious financial challenge.
At the moment, we're expecting a £38.5 million overspend this year. And yet last year we made the highest savings ever.
We have £46 million of savings now identified for delivery by March 2025. But we need to save even more to enable us to be the council we need, and can afford, to be.
Our plans for getting out of this situation include many very difficult decisions and we know that these are starting to have an impact on many of your lives, and with regret there are more to come.
However, before we make any decisions, we will be asking for your views on many of our plans to make sure they are right. Please look out for these consultations and make sure that you take part.
You can sign up to receive updates direct to your inbox here: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKSHROPSHIRE/subscriber/new
A video update
In this month’s video, I talk in more detail about our financial challenge and the difficult decisions we need to make. I also talk about our garden waste service, booking your slot at our household recycling centres and our move out of Shirehall.
You can also read more about these changes below.
Have you subscribed for our garden waste service?
One of the ways to help address our financial position is through charging for garden waste collection. We’re not alone, most councils charge for this service and many have been doing so for a while.
It means that if you want to continue to have your garden waste collected by us from October 2024, you’ll need to subscribe to our garden waste service.
We’ve priced it at £56 for a whole year, and we’re pleased to say that we’ve already had around 50,000 subscriptions. This will really help, bringing much-needed money back into the council so we can continue to deliver essential services for people who need us most.
If you haven’t subscribed already, you can do so by clicking on this link.
For those of you who have already subscribed, your stickers are being posted from the start of October but if your sticker hasn’t arrived by the time of your first green waste collection, your green bin will be emptied as the teams know who has subscribed.
Book a slot at one of our recycling centers for free
Another thing we’re doing is introducing a booking system at our five Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) in Bridgnorth, Craven Arms, Oswestry, Shrewsbury and Whitchurch.
From 4 November if you want to use an HRC you will have to first book a slot. All of our centres are open seven days a week, and this will remain the case until at least April next year.
Whilst it’s a small change, it will help reduce the congestion and queuing times. We believe it will also help us to increase recycling because the staff will be able to better engage with visitors and make sure that the right things go in the right place.
We do need to ensure that we reduce our spend wherever possible, and the booking system will help show which days the centres are most used. So, if we need to close for one day a week in future, we’ll make the right decision based on usage.
From 4 November you will be able to book your slot, at any of our recycling centres for FREE.
Further details on this will be announced in the coming weeks.
We’re on the move
We as a council will soon be moving out of our very dated and energy-hungry Shirehall headquarters into other premises, including the Guildhall in Shrewsbury town centre. The Guildhall is a building we already own and it will now be our new administrative base. We've implemented a phased move of services from Shirehall.
It is part of our plans to ensure we change how we are organised and run our services to become the council we need to be – modern, even more efficient and financially sustainable.
We've always said that this means we will be a smaller council, downsizing to smaller locations that are more efficient to run, while providing a much better workspace in many different ways. It's a natural next step towards our financial survival.
Please click on the link below to find out more.
I trust that you'll find this update useful, and please share it if you can. Shropshire is such a great place, and we can achieve so much more if we are all working together.
