Category: Social exclusion

Shropshire Council is withdrawing support for the county’s rural communities (updated)

andybodders

The council customer service point in Ludlow Library is open four days a week. But plans are afoot to reduce its opening to two days a week, Tuesday and Friday. This will mean that vulnerable people will find it harder to access support and get referrals to the food bank. Age Concern told the Shropshire Star that the countywide cuts will be a serious blow for the elderly.

Other cuts to community support are on the way. Shropshire Council is no longer interested in supporting the rural communities in our county.

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No lifts in Ludlow station upgrade. No fully accessible taxi in town. We should stop treating the disabled as second class

andybodders7 Comments

Major works are underway at Ludlow station. The scheme is to put a temporary footbridge in place while the old footbridge is repaired along with the steps leading up to it. There are no plans to install lifts for those who are disabled or have limited mobility. A couple of weeks before, Shropshire Council refused a licence for the only fully disabled access taxi in Ludlow because it did not meet the Euro 5 standard. You can’t get into a Ludlow Town Council meeting if you have severe mobility problems.

In Shropshire, the disabled remain second-class citizens. We must change this.

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Cuts become cruel as Shropshire Council moves to reduce payments to needy adults

andybodders

Is this a necessary cut or just a cruel cut? Shropshire Council is scheming to reduce the minimum income guarantee for the neediest adults. Of course, budgets are tight. Other councils pay less to needy people than Shropshire. So as always, Shropshire Council is following the pack to the back rather than leading from the front.

We should support the most vulnerable and impoverished in our society, not pay council executives more.

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Shropshire Council is planning to raid the tills of Ludlow charities with business rate hikes – it’s an immoral tax on volunteers

andybodders6 Comments

We have more from the Directorate of Very Bad News at Shropshire Council. The council is planning to cancel all discretionary business rate relief for charities, sports clubs, youth clubs and a lot of other social enterprises across the county. In Ludlow, and voluntary and social enterprises could face an annual bill of more than £20,000 from next April.

This is nothing other than a tax on our volunteer community. It is a disgusting raid on the funding of good causes.

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