Our representative on Shropshire Council is Brendan Mallon, who represents Tern Division. He often attends Parish Council meetings and is always happy to take questions or suggestions on local matters. Councillor Mallon also presents a report to the Parish Council and the contents of the latest one can be found below (please note views expressed in Councillor Mallon's report are not necessarily those of the Parish Council):

County Councillor’s Annual Report to Upton Magna Parish Council – 14th May 2026

 

Introduction

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for being so welcoming and helpful in my first year in a completely new role for me.  I have had to find my feet quickly and hopefully I have been of some service to your community in that time.  I am looking forward to working with you further and maximising what we can do to improve the circumstances for everyone.

Local Matters

Our conversations have of course been dominated by the BESS application.  I have been tremendously impressed with the level of focus, coordination and application of considerable expertise within the committee and the wider community.  At this time, we have aspects of government policy that give us both hope and some degree of concern. 

The hope, of course, comes from the likely commercial drawbacks to the change in NESO policy on grid connections announced last December.  However, the announcement of the National Scheme of Delegation, which severely constrains a local councillor’s power to call in applications, is of concern.  I have approached the planning officers, committee chair and Cabinet member for clarification as to whether this will be applied retrospectively if this particular planning process is allowed to drag into September 2026 when this scheme takes effect.

On the implementation of double yellow lines on Haughmond Hill, I have had confirmation from the Highways department that this will be implemented this financial year.

As for new traffic measures at Haughton Crossroads, I am still liaising with Councillor Thomas about the best way to coordinate this, due to the complications of implementing measures on the boundary between Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin Councils.

Shropshire Council

Highway issues generally have been high up our priority list within my council group.  My colleagues and I are set to play prominent roles in upcoming ‘Task and Finish’ groups on highways, potholes and the next steps after the cancellation of the North-West Relief Road.  We intend to closely scrutinise Shropshire Council processes to identify how we are failing in these areas and what options there are for improvement.

I have recently had very productive meetings with Simon D’Vali, Shropshire Council’s new Strategic Transport Executive Manager, a new role in Shropshire.  He is part of a new injection of personnel into the Highways Department and my initial impressions are very positive.  The level of engagement with councillors is a night-and-day contrast with what we have been used to so far. While we will continue to face a challenging economic environment, we will hopefully now have greater clarity on which problems will be prioritised and realistic timescales for rectification works to be conducted so we can deal with the issues accordingly.

In my role on the Northern Planning Committee, I have been challenging the planners repeatedly on inappropriate, large housing developments around North Shrewsbury that cannot be supported by our inadequate infrastructure and services. I successfully moved an amended motion to defer planning permission for 450 houses on Ellesmere Road.  The amendment compelled the planning officers to conduct a more thorough analysis of effects on traffic around the north end of Shrewsbury, taking into account the NWRR cancellation, traffic flow restrictions incorporated into the ‘Big Town Plan’ and the application to build 600 houses by the Battlefield Roundabout.  All of the above would seem likely to combine to greatly worsen the already dreadful congestion in this area. 

Sadly, when this was brought back to the committee last month (when I was not able to sit) the application was approved.  The Planning Officers presented traffic data that did not answer the specific questions in the motion, particularly with regard to the future effects of the Big Town Plan, despite this being in accordance with the guidelines of the National Planning Policy Framework.  We will need to press the same issue when the Battlefield development is presented as this will greatly magnify the congestion in the area.

A positive development is the commencement of work on a new Local Plan.  The withdrawal of the old Local Plan is heavily responsible for the lack of coherence to the way developments are implemented and distributed without apparent due regard to the supporting infrastructure.  So the good news is that the Plan Making and Scoping Consultation for the new Shropshire Plan is now live.  The bad news is that this is expected to take 30 months.  While this is apparently faster than the old way of formulating local plans, it is still hugely frustrating to have another 2 ½ years of fighting over-development.  I attended Cabinet last week, where this process was being discussed.  I asked whether, given the conditions I’ve described, any sort of accelerated process could be enacted in Shropshire.  The response from the Portfolio Holder for Planning was that the process is a statutory requirement from central government and that the protracted process is necessary in order that the resulting plan is not vulnerable to legal challenge from developers.  So, a positive step in the right direction, however it does mean that we have 2 ½ years of fighting ahead in order to prevent irreversible over-development.

As a group, we have been scrutinising the punishing effects of our latest financial settlement.  An 8.99% Council Tax increase and £190 million of borrowing to be paid back from future taxes requires much more transparency on how our money is being spent and the justification thereof.  We have been pushing hard for the creation of a fraud team in the council as unusually we don’t have one.  The council administration have agreed in principle to our initiative, however they want to delay its creation until the 27/28 financial year and we believe it should be implemented as soon as possible. 

We have also questioned the extensive ongoing spending on carbon reduction schemes, to the tune of over £10 million a year, or in other terms, half of this year’s Council Tax increases.  While many in Shropshire support such schemes, given our parlous financial state and global moves away from decarbonisation, we believe it would be prudent to at least temporarily reduce this spend until the declared financial emergency is at an end.

Looking Ahead

I look forward to continuing to provide what assistance I can, better understanding the needs of Upton Magna and better representing those needs in the council chamber and committees.  Thank you again.

Brendan Mallon

Councillor for Tern