Browsing 'News'
New Morrisons “open by Christmas 2014”
(Photo: https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience)
“Morrisons supermarket hopes to be trading by Christmas 2014,” says Oswestry’s new mayor. “This will create a huge interest in Oswestry and, hopefully, an increase in local employment.”
As he took office on Monday, Chris Schofield signalled that Oswestry’s economy will be the dominant ...
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Business Club Awards 2103
There were nine listed categories at the second Oswestry and Chronicle Business Club Awards with the 2013 winners receiving their awards at a hugely popular dinner attended by well over 200 at the Lion Quays on Wed 1st May. When Chronicle editor Graham Breeze made an additional personal award to Martin Anderson, the chair of the Chamber of Commerce from 2011 ...
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Paterson’s No to Insect Moratorium
There is no longer any question that there has been a hugely worrying decline in the pollinating insect population and particularly bees which together are estimated to be worth over £500 million per annum to our economy. Two thirds of the species are in decline with 250 of them in danger of UK extinction. The neonicotinoid group of insecticides have come u ...
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X = ?
(Photo: thebadgerrides. Creative commons licence)
On election day, we will choose between candidates, many of whom we know little about.
The Advertizer, in an edition which devotes two pages to Mrs Thatcher, spends under half a page listing local candidates’ names and addresses.
No interviews, no discussion of policies or personalities.
‘Scan ...
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Takeaway town
Photo: Takeaway on Lloyd Street takes shape.
In addition to the KFC and Starbucks about to reach completion at Oswestry’s ‘gateway’, and the McDonalds and Frankie and Benny’s planned for the cattle market site, three new takeaways are in the pipeline in town.
The old Martin’s store on Lloyd Street is fast being converted into a chip shop.
...
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Which is my ward?
Map: © Crown copyright and database rights 2012 Ordnance Survey 100049049
Town council ward boundaries were revised last year, and there's some confusion about exactly where they are.
There is a map on the town council website, but it omits the new Victoria ward.
The map below is the clearest we can find.
Oswestry will also choose three Shropshi ...
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Candidate’s withdrawal means no contest in Gatacre ward
A candidate has withdrawn from the contest for the two town council seats in Gatacre ward, leaving existing councillors Vince Hunt and Elaine Channon to claim them unopposed.
This means that 11 out of 18 town council seats have now been filled without opposition. Eight members of the new council already 'elected' have held seats before, and three are new ...
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Figures indicate 12% decline in town centre
The number of cars using Oswestry’s town council car parks declined by 6 percent last year, according to figures to be presented to the town council tonight.
This brings the total fall since the pre-financial crisis peak to 11.8 percent.
In other words, one eighth of the car parks’ trade has evaporated since the 2008-2009 financial year.
Without ...
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Hub rolls on
Last September the office handling face-to-face enquiries from Shropshire Counci's customers and those of other public services moved into the lobby of Oswestry library.
The move encountered significant opposition from people who felt that the library was an inappropriate place to site a facility where tempers sometimes become frayed.
The Council have ...
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Number crunching the new town council
Although the election is not until 2 May, we know that one third of sitting town councillors will be returned because they have not been opposed in their wards. These six include Martin Bennett, Peter Cherrington, Chris Schofield, Margaret Chamberlain, John Gareth Jones and Bill Benyon.
Five old hands will not be returning. Val Schofield, Heather Bickerto ...
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No contest for town council in eastern Oswestry
But across town 24 candidates chase 18 seats
There will be no contest in 2 May’s town council election in Eastern Oswestry.
The area is divided into three wards, each returning three members.
As there are just three candidates standing in each ward, all will become councillors.
Stalwarts who will remain on the council, include Martin Bennett (C ...
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Election battlegrounds
Candidates for the May 2 election of Shropshire Councillors have been announced.
Oswestry East
In elections for Shropshire Council, Conservative member and current town mayor Martin Bennett will be defending his seat in the Oswestry East division.
The other sitting member for this two-member division, Conservative Bill Benyon, is standing ...
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It makes a difference
It makes a difference from Noise on Vimeo.
It's almost three years since we interviewed Mo Battam in his Beatrice Street shop. Now the horsemeat scandal has highlighted practices in supermarket supply chains, the value of this local butcher's care and passion for his trade looks, if anything, even more obvious.
More interviews with local shopkeeper ...
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Rec next to Woodside school denied protection from development
Part of Gatacre fields lying next to Woodside school, and currently subject to plans to fence it off and make it accessible only by application to the school, has been denied protection against building or other development.
The project to place some of Gatacre recreation ground under the management of Woodside School is being led by Shropshire Councillor ...
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Planned housing development at Wilfred Owen’s birthplace moves ahead
(Photo: Dogfael. Some rights reserved)
The owners of Wilfred Owen’s birthplace, Plas Wilmot, are pressing ahead with their plans to build seven large houses on the orchard and paddock next to the historic house.
The development will extend in a semicircle to the west of the house.
Outline planning permission was granted by Shropshire Council last ...
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The case of the missing supermarket……….
In the conspicuous and continued absence of a trumpeting fanfare and a cut out 'n keep Tizer Special full of pics of the mayor decorously cutting the first sod, there is an interesting piece in the current Private Eye, featuring the community of Dorridge, nr Solihull. Over the last 5 years, Sainsbury's bought up a shopping centre, an adjacent row of shops ...
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Free, but not necessarily without cost
A sculpture trail, due soon in the town’s shops, parks and streets is to be, to some extent, underwritten by public money.
Records of the town’s Joint Economic Board meetings have not been made available to the public.
But Oswestry21.com has learnt that, at a meeting on 28 September last year, the Board 'ring fenced' £20,000 for this project.
O ...
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Local press in headlong descent
(Photo: [RAWRZ!]. Creative commons licence)
Our local press is in headlong and unsustainable decline, with incalculable consequences for the serious reporting of local events, and for local democracy.
In the second half of 2010, the Shropshire Star had on average 58,000 readers each day. By the second half of 2012, this number had fallen to 46,500 – ...
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Something to be proud of
Our fourth literary festival kicks off today.
Sometimes there’s the feeling that, a far western outpost, Oswestry is adrift. Festivals like this remind us that we aren’t. We are connected to the modern world - and to the past, when the town was a centre of Welsh scholarship and literature.
By celebrating writers from here – Wilfred Owen ...
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Change we can believe in
(Photo: sunilgarg. Creative commons licence)
Our 18 sitting town councillors run a multi-million pound business. Town clerk David Preston made this clear recently when he addressed a 60-strong audience interested in next May’s election.
They preside over assets valued at £13 million, and handle an annual budget of £3.5 million.
For reasons large ...
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