Oswestry21

Cool evening turned to a September night as an expectant hush descended over town. The lights were on in the Memorial Hall. Three candidates, a handful of officials and ooooh, there must have been almost two members of the public present, all to witness the arcane ritual of the opening of the ballot boxes and the tedium of the count.

The eagle eyed leader of Shropshire Council stalked the room as the tension became palpable. The figures counting at the table, and the others, trying to lean nonchalantly against the meagre fittings of the tea bar in the ante chamber, all flourescent lit and resembling characters in an Edward Hopper tableau, silently anticipating a defining moment in political history -  the arrival of an elected representative to Oswestry Town Council who is a) under retirement age, or b) hasn’t served on it for several millennia previously.

Finally, after the chaos of piles of loose ballot papers became neatly paper clipped sheaves and were then counted and checked - the result! By a considerable margin, young whipper snapper Saffron Rainey stands as a beacon of local aspiration, straddling the century between the patrician but engaged Conservatism of the past, and what one can rather desperately hope, in the light of the current national administration,  might be the enlightened and forward thinking Conservatism for the 21st century.

As the round of applause grew to a deafening crescendo, lights in the soon to be felled cherry trees in the Red Square suddenly beamed out, and street lights from Morda to Gledrid roundabout flashed on and off in time to the beat of “Things - can only get better………” by D-ream pulsing out through a massive sound system temporarily installed on the roof of the Memorial Hall.

Throughout town, bedroom windows were flung open and bleary eyed citizens shouted “What the @*$*???!!! If that’s Gibbos or the Ironworks again, I’m phoning the bloody Council in the morning and getting the bastards shut down……………”

Good luck Mr Rainey, may you blaze a trail for a new, younger generation of non partisan and contemporary thinking councillors that is so desperately required.

It seems as though Oswestry is fortunate to have its former Woolies occupied. According to the Local Data Company, of 807 former stores nationwide more than 300 remain empty two years after the company went into administration.

A quarter of the group’s stores now house a discount retailer, with the second biggest taker of the empty shops being supermarkets (namely Iceland, who took over 60 premises).

How would the situation in Oswestry have been altered had a supermarket taken over our Woolies? Would such further provision of grocery retail space have helped to put an end to the dubious claim that Oswestry needs not only another large supermarket, but one way out of town?

(From the Star)

Shropshire Council wants to fell nine cherry trees at Oswestry’s Festival Square car park. But a group of business people say there is no need for the trees to come down. The trees are used to string Christmas decorations in the square.

Willow Street-based PR firm, The Jools Payne Partnership, The Best of Oswestry website and The Gates gift shop in Church Street have become the first to back a campaign to save the trees.

Jools Payne said: “The cherry trees are stunning. To hack them down simply because the roots are causing a few issues is a travesty.

Shropshire Council says the tree roots are lifting the paving stones and will be replaced by other trees.

Marcus Leroux of the Times (Aug. 14th) reports that as a result of a 2 year investigation by the Competition Commission, supermarkets are to be barred from using property deals including those with local authorities, to freeze out other food retailers.

Whilst  there are some concerns that prevention of these practices will not always be beneficial to competitors, it is yet more recognition of the need to respond to the strong arm tactics of supermarkets especially by the Big Four ie Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and  Morrisons.

Tomorrow, 5^th August, is St. Oswald’s day. It was the Venerable Bede who, 100 years after Oswald’s grisly death in 642 here in Maserfield, was responsible for recording his story and considering him saintly.  But what was this Northumbrian ruler and convert to Christianity actually like? What was here at the time and what would he make today of the town named after him?

(For more info on the man himself visit http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/oswald.html )

A warning to Shropshire planning officers of things to come in Oswestry?

“It appears to us that Tesco is adept at making monkeys of planning authorities. We have cited examples that show their cavalier disregard for conditions imposed to protect other local businesses in other areas and it seems to us they are doing the same here,” says John Hall, Chairman of Shop in the Loop, which represents Shrewsbury town centre.

The Shrewsbury Chronicle, July 29

A full hall and an emotionally charged audience of 250 at the Marches School in Oswestry, today (Thurs 29^th) witnessed the Shropshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee, reject the application for a new superstore and cinema on the town’s Central Car Park.

Although the Council’s own Planning  Officers had recommended that J.Ross’ bid be accepted, as the only ‘ in centre’  application,  committee members expressed serious concerns about the plan’s  design, the adverse effect on the local residents, and above all, the traffic implications including volume, congestion and safety. They voted by a majority of 8 to 2 in favour of rejection.

However, it had taken three hours, including a procedural adjournment, to arrive at this decision, and Chairman John Everall then took Council officers’  advice to defer until ‘the autumn’ consideration of the 3 remaining bids all of which are ‘out of centre’…….