Wrekin Reform UK

17/09/2026

£𝟔𝟐𝟐,𝟎𝟎𝟎–£𝟔𝟔𝟑,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐀 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 — 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐋 𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐁𝐔𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐓

Shropshire Council is bringing five senior management appointments before Full Council on 24 September.

These are the salary bands attached to those posts:

• Corporate Director – Growth & Connected Communities: £141,864–£153,511
• Corporate Director – Change & Improvement: £141,864–£153,511
• Director of Adult Services: £124,395–£130,218
• Service Director of Housing: £106,925–£112,748
• Service Director – Inclusive Education, Family Help & Skills: £106,925–£112,748

That is £621,973 to £662,736 a year in basic salaries alone, before employer pension contributions, National Insurance and other employment costs. Shropshire Council’s own pay policy confirms these salary bands. (Shropshire Council)

And there is another senior vacancy still to come.

The Corporate Director – Finance & Governance post was also advertised but recruitment was unsuccessful, so it is due to be advertised again. At the same corporate director salary band, filling that sixth role would take the basic salary value of these six posts to around £764,000–£816,000 a year. (Shropshire Council)

Now put that into context.

In February 2025, under the previous Conservative administration, Shropshire Council publicly announced that it was cutting its senior leadership team from 20 posts to 12.5, claiming this would save £1.136 million every year.

It called it a “leaner leadership team.” (Shropshire Council Newsroom)

Just over a year later, we are looking at another revised senior management structure.

To be clear, these five appointments are not all completely new functions. Some replace or restructure jobs that already existed. But that makes the obvious question even more important:

What has happened to the “leaner leadership team” taxpayers were promised?

The Conservatives controlled Shropshire Council from its creation in 2009 until May 2025. The current Liberal Democrat administration inherited that structure and is now responsible for the latest reorganisation. (Shropshire Council)

Meanwhile, Shropshire Council has:

Raised Council Tax by 8.99%.

Required Exceptional Financial Support from Government to balance its budget.

Its February budget papers proposed using £121 million of Exceptional Financial Support for 2026/27 — effectively permission to borrow to balance the books. (Shropshire Council)

CIPFA’s external review has since highlighted serious financial challenges, and the council itself has acknowledged that it is working through a Financial Sustainability and Recovery Strategy. (Shropshire Council)

Residents are repeatedly told that difficult decisions have to be made.

Services face pressure.
Council Tax rises.
Borrowing increases.
Savings are demanded.

So taxpayers are entitled to ask the same question of the people at the very top:

Where is the value for money?

This should not be about attacking individual employees for accepting jobs.

It is about holding political administrations to account for the structures they approve and the money they spend.

The Conservatives told Shropshire they had created a smaller, cheaper leadership structure.

The current administration now needs to explain clearly how many senior managers Shropshire Council will have when this restructuring is complete, what the total annual cost will be, and how that compares with the £2.014 million senior-management structure taxpayers were promised in 2025.

Those figures should be published in full.

When residents are being asked to pay more, they have every right to know exactly what is being spent at the top.

Shropshire Council Shropshire Star TelfordLive Shropshire Conservatives Shropshire Magazine Telford & Wrekin Council Wrekin Conservative Association

17/09/2026

𝟖𝟎𝟎 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐒 — 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃?

The outline application for land south-east of Lubstree Park, off Humber Lane, proposes up to 800 homes, a local centre, community hub and land for a primary school.

Residents have raised concerns about traffic, flooding, pressure on GP services and wildlife. National Highways also requested additional transport information, saying the predicted number of journeys may have been underestimated and recommending that permission should not be granted for a further three months while more information was supplied.

This forms part of the much larger proposed North Telford/Muxton development of around 2,700 homes.

What is your biggest concern: roads, drainage, doctors, schools — or something else?I

16/09/2026

Yesterday We met with the Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice, at the Houses of Parliament.

We spoke about the plans in place for the party locally, along with our Chair (Andy Radford's) vision for veterans communities nationally, with one here within Telford and Wrekin

15/09/2026

A message and beautiful story we received yesterday from one of our members.

Today, I was invited by a friend to visit the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

After a couple of invitations, I finally got around to going — and I’m very glad I did.

I had been told it was an impressive place, but nothing quite prepares you for its scale or atmosphere. Across 150 acres are more than 400 memorials remembering those who have served and sacrificed for our country.

It is a remarkable place to reflect on how fortunate many of us are to live with the freedoms and security we enjoy today.

But it is also a deeply humbling reminder that those freedoms came at a terrible cost to generations before us.

Walking around today, I found myself thinking not only about what previous generations sacrificed for us, but about the world our generation will leave to those who come after us.

Perhaps my view of life can be summed up quite simply:

We are all just renting a space in life.

It isn’t really ours. We have been given the privilege and responsibility of occupying that space for a relatively short time.

And if that is true, surely we should try to hand it back in as good a condition — if not better — than when we found it.

That is what worries me.

Peace is fragile. Around the world, and increasingly at home, many of the things previous generations fought to protect can no longer simply be taken for granted.

I genuinely fear that we could become one of the first generations in recent history to leave those who follow us a less secure world than the one we inherited.

So perhaps there is a question for all of us:

If we have a responsibility to shape the future, shouldn’t we at least try to leave it a little better for those who follow us?

The National Memorial Arboretum certainly gave me plenty to think about today.

Lest we forget.

14/09/2026

Labour are making up the rules as they go along, and changing them to try and stop Reform UK.

It’s time to demand a General Election.

Telford Reform UK Branch

WHEN LABOUR GETS MILLIONS, IT’S DEMOCRACY. WHEN REFORM GETS MILLIONS, THEY WANT TO CHANGE THE RULES.

Something very troubling is happening in British politics.

Reform UK has just received two £36 million donations from British businessmen.

Now, within days, Labour ministers are talking about going even further on political donation restrictions, while legislation already before Parliament could retrospectively restrict donations from people who have recently returned to Britain.

Today Downing Street went further again, saying the current proposals are “not the limit of our ambition” and pushing for lower election spending limits.

Ask yourself: why now?

Because Labour has never had a problem taking serious money itself.

Just before the 2024 General Election, Labour accepted £4 MILLION from Quadrature Capital on 28 May — after the election had been called.

Quadrature Capital is a UK company whose group trading vehicles are based in the Cayman Islands.

The donation was not publicly revealed until after Labour had won the election.

And Labour’s relationship with wealthy donors goes back decades.

Under Tony Blair:

• Lord Sainsbury — donated to Labour from the 1990s and was given a peerage in 1997. By 2006 his donations were reported at more than £13 million.

• Lord Hamlyn — donated £500,000 before Labour’s 1997 victory and millions overall. Made a peer in 1998.

• Lord Gavron — gave £500,000 in 1996. Made a peer in 1999.

• Lord Joffe — donated before receiving his peerage in 2000.

• Lord Drayson — donated £100,000 before being made a peer in 2004 and subsequently donated substantially more.

• Lord Bhattacharyya — donated to Labour before receiving a peerage in 2004.

• Sir Gulam Noon — had donated around £200,000 to Labour before receiving a knighthood in 2002 and was later nominated for a peerage.

In fact, during the Blair-era cash-for-honours controversy, The Independent reported that 17 of 22 Labour donors who had given more than £100,000 since 2001 had received honours.

That does not prove those honours were bought — and the subsequent police investigation resulted in no prosecutions.

But it makes Labour’s sudden moral outrage over wealthy political donors rather difficult to swallow.

Labour was happy to compete under Britain’s political funding rules when the big money was flowing towards Labour.

Now Reform has received unprecedented financial backing and threatens the political establishment, suddenly those rules need tightening further.

If political donations are going to be restricted, then create clear rules, apply them equally to Labour, Reform, the Conservatives, companies, wealthy individuals and trade unions, and apply them prospectively.

Changing the effect of the rules after lawful donations have already been accepted is not how a confident democracy should behave.

Political opponents should be beaten at the ballot box — not financially handicapped because the Government doesn’t like who is challenging it.

What do you think?

Fair reform of political donations — or an establishment frightened of Reform UK?

Wrekin Reform UK Shropshire Star Shropshire Magazine Telford Reform UK Branch TelfordLive Wrekin LabourReform UK

14/09/2026

No matter what your political views are, what are the three most important issues for The Wrekin.

Shropshire Magazine

13/09/2026

This is why we need you with us.

Expect every dirty trick possible from the Westminster elite and the press.

Join us as prepare for what is coming.

Wrekin Conservative Association

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐔𝐋𝐓 — 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒.

This is exactly the sort of dirty, underhand politics that has destroyed trust in Westminster.

Reform UK has just received an extraordinary £72 MILLION — two £36 million donations from individuals who clearly believe Reform can change Britain.

𝐒𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫.

Labour politicians are now demanding tougher limits on political donations, while the Government is already pursuing rules that can operate retrospectively against certain overseas-linked donations. (The Guardian)

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬.

A political opponent receives unprecedented financial backing — and instead of asking themselves why people are prepared to put that level of support behind Reform, Labour’s instinct appears to be:

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬. 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲. 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠.

There is an entirely legitimate debate to be had about how political parties should be funded. But those rules should be clear, fair and apply equally to everybody — not rewritten after the event because the establishment suddenly dislikes who is benefiting.

The Government itself announced its overseas-donor proposals back in March, so we should be precise about that. But following Reform’s £72m boost, pressure inside Labour for a much wider domestic donations cap has intensified dramatically. (GOV.UK)

You don’t protect democracy by moving the goalposts when your opponent becomes stronger.

You protect democracy by letting the British people decide.

Join donate.reformparty.uk/the-wrekin

Shropshire Star Shropshire Magazine TelfordLive Telford Reform UK Branch Wrekin Labour Conservatives Telford Labour Party The Labour Party Telford & Wrekin Council Shropshire Council Wrekin Reform UKconservatives

13/09/2026

What’s the difference in wearing any of these in public?

Shropshire Star TelfordLiveAndrewRadford.co.uk Shropshire Magazine Telford & Wrekin Council

12/09/2026

This is a peaceful protest and it shows the feeling of many people towards illegal migrants.