The three Green Town Councillors for Oswestry Castle Ward, Cllr Mike Isherwood, Cllr Duncan Kerr and Cllr Olly Rose are standing together in demanding action to resolve a long-standing problem in the town.

They explained:

“The elderly residents of Regents Court have told us that for many years they have had to endure noise, fumes and anti-social behaviour from a small minority who use Central Car Park for joy riding, revving engines and performing stunts late into the night. As though this wasn’t bad enough the same residents also have to cross the busy and dangerous exit from the car park when they walk into the town centre and there has already been at least one serious accident here.

As Local Councillors we have worked with Peter Lloyd from Trinity Residents Association to get the Town Council to commission a proper traffic engineers report to see how these serious problems can be addressed. We thought we were making good progress in getting this accepted by the Town Council but this all came to a halt last month when all but one member of the controlling Conservative group on the Town Council voted to reject this sensible way forward and thereby leaving the matter unresolved. However, we haven’t given up and will bring this matter back before the Council again when we hope better wisdom will prevail.

We have also been working with PC Downes from the Police to understand the action they are taking against anti-social drivers of joy riding vehicles. Thanks to their perseverance, and the Council’s investment in CCTV, some success has been achieved but we are a long way from resolving the problem and the fear is that the moment the scarce resources of the Police are diverted then the problems will simply start up again. We have therefore done our own research and found that for over five years Shropshire Council has had powers under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2014 to make a Public Spaces Protection order which would have dramatically improved the powers of the police to take action. We are surprised and disappointed that Shropshire Council or its Councillors have never made the Town Council aware of these powers and we are therefore calling for this lost time to be made-up by a prompt adoption of these much stiffer sanctions on offenders. If other Councils can take quick and effective action to protect their residents, why can’t Shropshire? We will also be urging Oswestry Town Council to fully support this demand at its next meeting on the 25th November and we would welcome it if all residents affected by these problems to came along and show their support”.