Shropshire gags councillors over Church Stretton Library case

St Laurence's, Church Stretton

On Wednesday I blogged about Shropshire Council's decision not to contest the judicial review of their decision to move Church Stretton Library to a less central location in the town.

The mighty Andy Boddington, a Liberal Democrat member of the authority, tells us what happened next:

We had a high court case over libraries last week. The council withdrew and lost the case. 

Since then it has launched a vitriolic campaign against the local campaigners in three press releases. 

Late on Friday, the chief monitoring officer and chief executive slammed a gagging clause on all councillors. The gagging memo is phrased as a “request” but I know that if any councillor ignores this request is ignored, flack will fly in their direction. 

We are told we cannot comment in any way on the case. That probably means that I can’t comment on the council reaction. Or why it has decided to attack a local community at the same time it is planning to work more closely with local people.