On Monday night Shrewsbury Town Council voted to raise the council tax precept for residents by 97.9%.

Green Party councillor Julian Dean, who sits on both Shrewsbury and Shropshire Councils, reflects on why raising the precept was a painful, but necessary, decision to take:

Last night Shrewsbury Town Council agreed, after much debate, that it would be necessary to take control of services previously run by Shropshire Council. This will mean raising the precept, the amount of council tax that residents pay to Shrewsbury Town Council. This was not an easy decision for Green Party councillors – myself and Emma Micklewight, who represents Radbrook – to take. 

The bottom line is that the Lib-Dem run Shropshire Council is now in an extremely perilous financial situation after years of poor management by previous Conservative administrations and central government underfunding. As a result, Shrewsbury Town Council now faces a ‘tough choice’:

Either watch as essential services across the town - from street cleaning to CCTV management - continue to decline, impacting on Shrewsbury residents and businesses. 

Or, take those services into the town council’s control so we can ensure they are delivered effectively free of the mismanagement that has plagued Shropshire Council over recent years. 

The former would have a huge, negative impact across Shrewsbury. However, the latter means raising the amount of council tax Shrewsbury residents pay. 

The amount of money we need to raise over the next financial year will lead to an increase in the precept charge on all council tax payers in Shrewsbury. From April, Band A properties will pay £114 per year to the town council, and Band B properties will pay £133. For context, 70% of all householders in Shrewsbury are currently in Band B and pay £51.66 a year for the current services. In future they will have to pay £133 a year to the town council. The rise will be around £5 a month for most households.

The precept in Shrewsbury is much lower than other local councils in the county. For example Oswestry is £96 and Ludlow is £216. The national average is £174.

As Green Party councillors, we are concerned about the impact of Tory mismanagement of essential services and also the impact of price rises on those already struggling with the cost of living. 

It’s a tough call to make. 

In order to make things fairer, we raised an amendment that means a small proportion – about 4p per household per week – will fund a Cost of Living Project which will provide grants to help organisations like the Food Hub and Marches Energy Advice to support people with the cost of living. This is a trial project for a year and its future depends on how effective it proves to be.

We’re pleased that the Liberal Democrat administration running Shrewsbury Town Council backed our amendment. Labour councillors tried to pare the budget back to reduce the amount of residents would have to pay, which was fair enough. However playgrounds, youth services, CCTV, and some upgrades to workplaces would have been lost. We didn’t agree that these were all worth sacrificing, and Labour's changes would have still resulted in an increase of close to 60%. 

Last night’s debate provided some important lessons for councillors. 

In future we believe it is possible to give the public more advance notice of changes like these so that more people can have their voices heard. The town council’s consultation showed wide support for raising the precept in order to protect and improve services, but the detail about the exact proposed rise wasn’t included so the percentage still came as a shock.  

We’re aware that alternative proposals – including the Green amendment we submitted – need to be shared with other councillors in advance so everyone has time to consider them before the debate. 

Finally, we were disappointed to see a Reform councillor taking a swipe at those who are relying on welfare benefits whether because of unemployment or health reasons. It was nasty and vindicative, but indicative of Reform’s default position of ‘punching down’ – attacking the most vulnerable. 

As Green councillors we worked with our Lib Dem and Labour colleagues to find a way through a difficult decision that would ensure essential Shrewsbury services were maintained, while protecting the most vulnerable as much as possible. We believe we’ve made the best out of a bad situation. 

But it’s a timely reminder for everyone: if we want public services protected and councils to be run efficiently for the good of all, we need to vote for parties that support this, locally and nationally.

EDIT: This statement was amended on 31 January.2026. Due to an editing error, the previous version stated the wrong figures.