Shropshire Council is proposing to increase council tax by 8.99%. I say propose, it’s an absolute certainty unless the government suddenly finds more money for rural areas. That won’t happen. Labour ministers think a 12% budget cut over the next three years is the right funding for Shropshire. It is not. The cut comes on top of 16 years of Conservative mismanagement of the council’s finances. The financial gap can only be plugged by a multimillion pound loan from the government and a painful hike in council tax. It’s a bad place to be.
The government grant is not enough to pay our social care costs. It is not enough to keep buses on the road in rural areas or to keep the roads free of potholes. It is not enough to keep our leisure facilities and libraries open.
Over six years early in its control of Shropshire Council, the Conservative administration failed to raise council tax. The result is the council’s revenue is at least £25m below what it might now have been. No one likes paying tax but by not increasing council tax year after year, the previous administration made an increasingly difficult situation worse.
Under the Conservatives, the upper tiers of management at the council grew. At one point there was even an Office of the Chief Executive along with a raft of assistant directors. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the council could not bring its finances under control. The new administration elected in May 2025 inherited a £50m structural deficit.
This deficit has got worse. The Conservatives didn’t have a grip on the council’s finances despite their bluster in council meetings. They failed to conduct a “deep dive” into the books to get an understanding of where costs were occurring and where they could be controlled. My fellow councillors have now conducted deep dives revealing that the council’s finances are worse than anyone could have imagined.
Then there is the folly of the North West Relief Road. The project never made much sense financially or environmentally. Costs have escalated from c. £60m to over £200m. An unbelievable £39m has been spent on design and consultancy with more than £24m going to international consultancy WSP alone. Some of this was a government grant, which we will have to repay, the rest was in loans, which we will also have to replay. To complete the road, even if it was to get planning permission¸ would cost at least £125m more. That’s fantasy money while the council is struggling to cover its day-to-day expenditure. The NWRR has always been a fantasy project. It’s Shopshire’s HS2.
Four in five pounds of Shropshire Council’s income pays for adult and child social care. The rest pays for maintain the roads, collecting bins, leisure centres and libraries. Councils have been struggling to pay for social care costs for a decade, especially those councils with an older population as we have in Shropshire. The current government has given a clear message to counties like Shropshire. The rising costs of social care must be paid for by council taxpayers.
The outcome of the situation at Shropshire Council is that council tax is due to go up by 8.99% The council will also need to borrow nearly £200m to keep afloat. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. It will hit personal budgets. Many people don’t have any money to spare. Council tax is regressive. People with less money pay a higher proportion of theit income for the same services as higher earners. It’s a bad tax.
If we don’t raise council tax and take out a massive loan, the council’s finance chief would have to file for Section 114 (that is bankruptcy). If that happens, the government will appointment commissioners to run the council and they could well impose an even bigger rise in council tax.
There will be some relief for those who cannot make the increased council tax payments. Shropshire Council has been given £3.7m next financial year from the government’s Crisis and Resilience Fund to provide household support. We have yet to see details of the criteria for this.
This is not a happy position to be in.