Ludlow Town Councillors appointed three councillors to join them on the council on 16 June. One co-opted councillor has since proved to not have been eligible to stand. After legal advice, the council has decided it must rerun its selection process. There will be no opportunity to stand. The rerun will involve councillors choosing between four of the five councillors that originally stood. The Annual Town Meeting will be held on Zoom at 7pm on Monday 28 June 2021. This is an opportunity for residents to raise concerns and ask questions about the work of the council and issues that matter to our town. The deadline for questions is today. Details below.
The government has decided that Coronavirus restrictions will not be lifted from tomorrow. That means that social distancing measures across Shropshire will remain in place for another month, or until Boris Johnson lifts the restrictions. In Ludlow this applies to King Street which will be closed during the middle of the day on Fridays and Saturdays. Local infections remain very low. The full scale testing site has been dismantled and Ludlow will now be served by a mobile testing unit based at the Eco Park.
Yesterday Lib Dems were in a state of high excitement have won the Chesham and Amersham by-election by a mile and a half. Although I don’t often publish national political stuff on this blog, the result was game changer. It would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention it. And the comments made by the defeated Tory candidate show how of touch the Tories have become. How arrogant they have become. There was a 25% swing to the Lib Dems in Chesham and Amersham on Thursday. That is huge. Ludlow constituency has been Lib Dem in the past. We would need a swing of 23.5%. That now look achievable. A big challenge. But achievable.
We are all tired of the epidemic. We all want life to get back to normal. But there is growing doubt that we will see a full relaxation of restrictions on 21 June. There is a notable growth in cases in England. In Scotland also but not in Wales where restrictions have been stricter for longer. Case levels in England are relatively low, averaging around 6,000 cases a day so far this month. Over the equivalent period in January at the peak of the second wave, we were witnessing 47,000 cases a day. But positive tests are increasing and again growing here in Shropshire. There are no reported cases here in Ludlow and south west Shropshire. But there are a rising number of cases in the Church Stretton and Much Wenlock areas, further north in Shrewsbury and around Baschurch. And in Telford & Wrekin. Though the number of cases is low, the trend is up and that is what is worrying health professionals.
Out of the blue, Shropshire Council has decided that it will no longer publish councillors’ home addresses. Anyone wishing to send letters, will need to send them to Shirehall where the overstretched secretariat will redirect them to councillors. As far as a I can see, this was a decision taken in secret by an increasingly secret council. I certainly wasn’t consulted. Current rules would allow a resident in Oswestry to stand for a Shropshire Council seat in Ludlow. But now you are not now allowed to know where a councillor lives. This is just the latest step in the Conservatives erosion of democracy on Shropshire Council. They talk democratic language while undermining democracy at every step. Excepting where there is an identified risk to a councillor, the public have a right to know where their councillors live. Public figures should expect and accept that.