. It comes as no surprise to hear that this service will be staying at Princess Royal Hospital in Telford at least for now!! As I have said before I strongly suspect that this the thin end of the wedge. Once stroke care is moved permanently from Shrewsbury then a proper Accident and Emergency unit ceases to be viable in the longer term. We must be vigilant to ensure we don’t lose our A+E by stealth!
. The West Midlands Ambulance Service came to our Local Joint Committee the other night to talk about how they are reorganising their service. The good news is that they have reopened Ambulance stations in Shrewsbury and Craven Arms. This means that we should see more fully equipped ambulances arrive at incidents and fewer fast response cars. The overall response times for Ambulances however, is still a cause of concern.
We also had a representative from the Air Ambulance present. They need £6m to run their excellent service every year, much of which is raised by public donations. Please remember to support any event or appeal that is run locally.
. This is slowly collapsing on the Methodist Chapel side of the road in several places (especially around 33). I have been putting pressure on the Highways department for some months about this and they are due to survey it. I will continue to press them as remedial action is now urgent.
. A housing developer from Telford is proposing to build two five bed roomed houses by the Chapel. At the last parish council meeting he admitted that he had not read our Parish Plan which called for smaller family houses.
I chaired a residents meeting in the Methodist School Room to discuss with residents how to object to this proposal. The steepness of the land and access are two key issues here. I have also asked the Planning Department of the Council to involve English Nature in this process.