Reform UK Shrewsbury Branch

02/11/2026

Every full-time minimum-wage job now costs its employer £4,740 a year more than in 2024.

In 2024/25 a full-time worker on the minimum wage cost £24,131 a year in wages and employer National Insurance. From April 2027 the same job costs £28,874.

The employer National Insurance on that one job is up 71%, from £1,823 to £3,114, because the 2024 Budget raised the rate to 15% and cut the threshold per worker from £9,100 to £5,000. This Budget left all of it in place. The Employment Allowance shields the very smallest employers, but it is used up once a firm has more than three full-time staff on the minimum wage.

Staff deserve their pay rise. But every Shrewsbury business that employs people, from the corner shop to the care home to the engineering works, is paying a tax on jobs that the MP's Budget post did not mention.

The CBI said the Budget "lacks the bold moves that would have made it easier for firms to invest, hire and grow". Reform UK would cut employer National Insurance back to 13.8% for British workers.

01/11/2026

𝗦𝗵𝗿𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗯𝘂𝗿𝘆'𝘀 𝗠𝗣 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 "𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝘀" 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀. 𝗪𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝘂𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝘄𝗻.

Replying to a constituent who asked why the price of a pint is going up again, the MP said raising the rates threshold "from £12k to £18k means that many more pubs will now be taken out of paying business rates altogether."

Shropshire Council's own rating list has 78 pubs in Shrewsbury's SY1, SY2 and SY3 postcodes. 59 of them get nothing from this change: 15 already paid nothing, and 44 are valued above the new £21,000 ceiling. A Shrewsbury publican of 21 years made the same point on her own post: the traditional pubs that need help are well over the threshold.

That leaves 19 that gain. And on our figures, even they are worse off than in 2024.

Take a small pub that qualifies, with a rateable value of £15,000 and three full-time staff. Against 2024, its rates bill falls by £1,871 a year. Its wage bill has gone up by £10,355. That is about £8,000 a year worse off.

Even with just one full-time member of staff on the minimum wage, the wage rise since 2024 is bigger than the largest rates saving any of these pubs can get.

29/10/2026

Yesterday was Budget Day, the day Labour stole even more of your money! 💷

We’re looking back at budgets gone by and highlighting how our MP, Julia Buckley MP, has voted on previous Budget measures.

Here’s a reminder of her voting record 👇

17/10/2026

🤢SHREWSBURY LEFT TO ROT UNDER THE LIB DEMS!

Heather Kidd, Alex Wagner, and Rob Wilson have been busy announcing ‘Lib Dem Action in Shrewsbury’, promising everything, including ‘improved’ street cleaning.

Yet just around the corner, Cross Street is an absolute disgrace. The disgusting mess under the station is hardly the welcome visitors deserve when arriving in our beautiful town, and it’s not unreasonable to question whether the conditions have become a health hazard.

This filth sits on top of the £4.47 million floating bus stop scheme they introduced, which has brought the town to a standstill.

Reform would make cleaning up this mess a priority.

14/10/2026

❌ Shrewsbury Town Council does not know what it is talking about on climate.

❌ It has no expertise in climate science or farming, and no statutory duty in climate adaptation. That hasn't stopped it lecturing residents and asking the Government for money. So we checked its statement against its own sources. Almost nothing survives.

❌ "At 2°C a crop failure could potentially occur every year." The study behind the figure says roughly every other year. Even the climate campaign film the Council quotes says every other year.

❌ It isn't "crops" either. The study is about maize, and the chance of all five of the world's main maize regions having a below-par year at the same time. One climate model, farming technology held still.

❌ "Before significant warming." The study's starting point is 2006 to 2015. The hot summer of 2022 led to "further crop failures". Defra's figures for 2022: cereal harvest up 8%, wheat up 11%, yields above average. The hot year was a good harvest.

❌ A wet 2023 summer added to food prices. Food inflation peaked in March 2023, before that summer began, and fell for the next ten months.

❌ It asks the Government for "a national adaptation strategy". The Government published its third national adaptation programme in 2023.

❌Six claims, six failures, in one press release. The Town Council has borrowed a campaign film's talking points, got even those wrong, and put them out under its name as fact.

❌ This is a council that nearly doubled its share of your council tax this year. Its job is the parks, the cemeteries, the street cleaning and the town centre. It should stay in its lane, and leave climate science to people who understand it.

We have written to the Town Council asking it to correct its statement. We will share its reply.

Shrewsbury Town Council calls for Government action on climate resilience

Shrewsbury Town Council has written to Shrewsbury MP Julia Buckley calling for greater Government support for local councils to prepare communities for the impacts of climate change.

The letter, sent by Council Leader Councillor Rob Wilson following the adoption of a motion on climate adaptation and resilience at Full Council, highlights the increasing risks posed by extreme heat, drought, intense rainfall, flooding and storms, as well as the impact on biodiversity, food production and public health.

Read more & our letter to MP Julia Buckley

https://www.shrewsburytowncouncil.gov.uk/shrewsbury-town-council-calls-for-government-action-on-climate-resilience/

10/10/2026

Perhaps Julia Buckley MP could now spend less time campaigning for a train that would save her 15 minutes on her taxpayer-funded journey to Parliament, and more time focusing on the issues that matter to the vast majority of Shrewsbury residents.

Whilst spending nearly two years on a campaign that was always doomed to fail because of a lack of capacity on the West Coast Main Line, she has failed to register votes on important issues for Shrewsbury residents, including the removal of Winter Fuel Payments and inheritance tax on farms.

A cynic might say she was too scared to defy her party.

We pay her to represent us and vote in Parliament. Perhaps it’s time to focus on the wider constituency, rather than campaigning for a train that very few residents would use.

08/10/2026

Shropshire Council’s Lib Dem leader, Heather Kidd, caught laughing about the extortionate waste of taxpayers’ money her party has presided over.

Consultation. Consultation. Consultation. What’s the point if they make terrible decisions, then put the fixes out for endless consultation?

Reform would actually get things done in Shropshire.

07/10/2026

October 7 — We Remember

Three years ago today, Israel suffered the worst massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

Hamas terrorists murdered around 1,200 people and took hundreds more hostage. Families were torn apart, lives destroyed and communities devastated.

Today we remember the victims. We remember the hostages. And we stand with Jewish people in Britain and around the world who continue to live with the consequences of that terrible day.

There must be no excuse for terrorism. No excuse for antisemitism. And no forgetting what happened on October 7.

We remember. We stand together. We will not look away.

04/10/2026

Since 17 August the Abbey Foregate loop road behind the Abbey, and Horsefair, Railway Lane, Railway Terrace and Portobello, have been 20mph.

We checked the government's own road casualty records. In five years there were three collisions on those roads, all slight injuries. Nobody was killed or seriously injured. And the only serious injury anywhere on Abbey Foregate in those five years? A pedestrian on a crossing on the main road, hit by a mobility scooter, late on a summer night in 2022. No speed limit sign would have made any difference to that.

A traffic sensor on the loop road shows that before the change most drivers were already doing about 20 mph. 85% were at or below 22.7 mph, and just 3% went over 31 mph.

The council says it acted because people asked for less traffic. A speed limit does not reduce traffic. What problem was this solving, and what did it cost? We are asking.

03/10/2026

In the Council debate on 24th September, the Cabinet member for transport defended 20mph limits with a physics formula: kinetic energy equals half m v squared.

It sounds convincing. It does not hold up.

1. The formula is the car's energy, not the injury. When a car hits a pedestrian at 30 mph, under 5% of the car's energy goes into the collision. What hurts the pedestrian is the speed at impact.

2. A sign is not a speed. The government's own study found signed 20mph limits cut average speeds by less than 1 mph. Squaring a drop that small changes almost nothing.

3. Taken literally, the formula says heavier cars are the danger. Electric cars weigh hundreds of kilograms more. Either weight matters, or the formula is the wrong one.

Nobody disputes that slower crashes hurt less. The question is whether £1.5 million of signs makes crashes slower where crashes happen. The evidence says it does not.