Plans for Shrewsbury town centre are up for discussion tomorrow, 8 March at Shropshire Council’s cabinet meeting. Shropshire Council wants to sell the bus station and the bus layover car park as housing land. There is vague talk in the Big Town Plan (BTP) about another location for a bus station but no location is proposed. Rural bus companies have now written to Shropshire Council saying that current plans to end inter-urban and rural buses at the park and ride sites, with a transfer onto local buses for the journey into the town centre, is not feasible. The plan will lead to a drop in passenger numbers and some services being withdrawn. There is no doubt that the town centre down from Pride Hill to the River Severn needs regeneration but it is far from clear that the plans from Shropshire Council and Shrewsbury Town Council are the right approach […]
Day: 7 March 2021
NHS pay rise of 1% is too little to reward the heroes of our nation says Tracey Huffer
We have stood on the streets and applauded our front line NHS staff. We have wondered at their resilience in the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. We have sympathised with them when they have fallen ill and with their families when they have died. The reward health service workers will get for their efforts is a measly 1% pay rise. Ministers seem not to recognise that those who have worked themselves into exhaustion, taken on extra shifts, faced danger every working day need a boost. With tax allowances frozen, the lowest paid staff and frontline nurses should at least get the 2.1% pay rise they were promised.
Covid Watch 134: Good progress on vaccination in Ludlow and Shropshire for those over 65
Two good news stories this weekend. Infection rates in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and across England have fallen rapidly. There were seven cases in Ludlow in the seven days to 28 February, down for a peak of 30 cases a week a few weeks before. Vaccination rates are increasing with 95% of Ludlow residents over 65 years of age now vaccinated. Restrictions haven’t been lifted and our behaviour can’t change but we are at last looking towards the end of rules that have kept some people largely confined to their homes for a year.