Albrighton 800 Homes: Secretary of State Takes the Appeal

Shropshire is a county-sized council with market towns scattered across it and fifty miles between some of them. Shrewsbury sits inside its loop of the Severn and is the county town. Oswestry is up on the Welsh border, Ludlow and Church Stretton are south under the hills, and Bridgnorth, Market Drayton and Whitchurch are east and north.

Shropshire Today reports what the record shows across all of it. One boundary is worth stating at the top: Telford and Wrekin is a separate unitary authority, so nothing here about bins, planning or council tax applies in Telford. Shropshire Council has been the sole authority for the rest since 2009, and it publishes the evidence for its decisions where hardly anybody reads it. We read it and write it up, with a link to the document every time.

The lay of the land

• News: the public record, including the council’s planning register in Shrewsbury and the market towns.
• Local Info: house prices by town and ward, trains to London, roadworks and park and ride and planning news.
• What’s On: things to do and what is happening across the county this week.

Every fact carries a link to its official source.

Three numbers worth knowing before you read anything else about Shropshire. The middle home sold here over the last year cost £268,000, and Oswestry and Church Stretton are £145,000 apart. The fastest train from Shrewsbury to London takes 2 hours 34 minutes and there is no direct service at all. And the council can demonstrate 4.61 years of housing land where national policy asks for five, which is why so much is being approved on the edge of the towns.