Shropshire Council Reviews 

We stupidly parked in oxon park and ride on a Saturday bank holiday weekend
We missed the last bus at 6.30 by 2 minutes
We had to get a taxi to the park and ride which was closed and then had to contact Shropshire council to let us out at a cost of £60
They eventually arrived 1 and a half hours later even though there was a family with 2 young children also waiting
Do not ever use Shrewsbury park and ride ever this is disrespectful behaviour at the least

I have many complaints about Shropshire Council, but their broken complaints system has led me to create ShropWatch to help other people, and to collate evidence for a dossier to present to the Government in response to the Best Value notice that has been served on the Council. Please check this out and send me your evidence. The LGSCO is no better either and also a waste of public money.

I made a formal complaint to Shropshire Council in October 2025. I never received a Stage 1 response.

After months of holding responses and repeated chasing, my MP was told in July 2026 that the Council would still provide me with a Stage 2 response. That response never arrived.

On 20 August 2026 I was instead told that the matters had been dealt with and that the complaints process was “exhausted”.

I have now had to make a fresh complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman specifically about the Council’s handling and closure of that complaint.

This comes after several years of difficulties in my dealings with Planning and other Council processes, including unanswered correspondence, inconsistent explanations, validation problems and concerns over the handling of records and documents.

The amount of time required simply to obtain clear answers has been extraordinary. My experience has left me with very little confidence in the Council’s complaints and administrative systems.

I do not expect an organisation never to make mistakes. I do expect a public authority to acknowledge them, answer reasonable questions, keep an accurate record and operate a complaints process that actually reaches a clear conclusion.

Here is a 'not so short' list of some of the issues:
Planning and Development Services / Planning
application handling and delay
validation requirements and red-line issue
pre-application advice
inconsistent or unanswered advice
CIL/affordable-housing administration
handling of representations and planning records
publication of private correspondence and financial viability information
apparent absence/inadequacy of decision records in some cases
lack of site visits / evidence verification
complaint responses from Planning management
Corporate Complaints / Customer Feedback / Complaint Monitoring
failure to issue the Stage 1 response to SR-277197
unexplained treatment of the matter as Stage 2
months of holding responses and delay
failure to obtain responses from Planning
eventual declaration that the complaints process was “exhausted”
circular reliance on the Ombudsman rather than determining the Council complaint itself
Monitoring Officer / Governance
failure to respond to governance and complaint-handling concerns
lack of effective escalation when normal complaint mechanisms failed
concerns about oversight, audit trails and accountability
Highways
historic road/highway information
handling of evidence concerning the B4555/access
unanswered questions and incomplete historic records
old highway-improvement/CPO scheme and inability to explain what happened to it
information about land acquired for highway purposes and the scheme that did not proceed
Information Governance / Freedom of Information
inability to locate records expected to exist
distinction between information “not held” and information that cannot be found
searches that may miss material not correctly filed
incomplete historic information
handling/disclosure of Council-held information
Building Control
inability to trace important historic Building Control records
concerns over former Bridgnorth District records inherited when Shropshire became unitary
consequences of missing commencement/inspection/completion evidence for property history
Property / Land Records / Estates-related administration
what happened to land acquired through the historic highway/CPO programme
whether Shropshire Council still owns it
whether any was sold/transferred
absence of a readily reconstructable documentary trail concerning those public assets

Shrewsbury town is becoming with homeless people druggies alcohol addict sleeping in the street. There’s people turning violence aggressive towards people just don’t do anything in the town of Shrewsbury.

Not even worth 1 star.

Employed Premier Surfacing from Market Drayton to resurface a road in Hodnet.

The contractor has dumped all the excavated rubble and dirt on the verge.

The council have said " it is not their responsibility".

Everyone may as well leave their rubbish everywhere then, especially as the council arent bothered!

I've been trying for hours to log-in to view my council tax. Frustration and stress is all I've accomplished so far. It won't accept my log-in details. It doesn't recognise my details. It can't even find ME by name or email. In fact, according to Shropshire Council I don't exist. So why have I received an email with an attached pdf of my council tax bill? I've tried to re-register. Guess what? It won't let me do that either. 'Artificial Intelligence' should be 'Artificial Insemination;' we're being impregnated with facts and figures; what we should or shouldn't do, which mean nothing to us but sets the Council free of their obligations to the public. What is our Council Tax spent on? Certainly not the roads or other vital amenities. We even have to recycle our own rubbish. What a b----y con.
Question: What do we want?
Answer: A decent Council run by people who understand the real world.
But will that ever happen? Unlikely. We're just screwed every which way.
I failed to mention that I opted for paperless bills so why, after years of paperless bills, did they decide to send me an email with a pdf of my bill attached - the mind boggles.

SCC recently sent us a letter reclassifying our house in the middle of Glentworth Avenue, Oswestry from " rural " to " town " after 42 years since first built just so that they could RIP US OFF for another £115 pa Council Tax more than our close neighbours in identical properties in the same road. It was impossible to communicate with SCC so we did a formal complaint which they quickly steam rolled and then responded by stating that we alone in the road amongst our 50 / 100 odd neighbours would now also have to vote in a completely different ward ( Castle ) away from all our close neighbours just yards away on issues which probably had nothing to do with us and our neighbours and where the councillor there has already confirmed we are not his constituents etc ...... We continue to chase SCC who continue to ignore or refuse to answer our simple questions or meet us or tell us which council meetings we can attend to raise questions as they attempt to bury their obvious incompetence ...... We are shocked to learn how many overpaid high flying job titles SCC have in their empire and that SCC receive a disproportionate number of complaints and recently received a reprimand from the Information Commissioner for Poor Service and Lack Of Transparency as they continue to deny us our democratic rights ........ not to mention their high level of negative reviews on this site ........ We are comparatively recent to retirement in Shropshire and we love it and especially quirky Oswestry and its lovely people ..... but we are shocked to find that we seem to have what feels like such a totally incompetent shambles of a council who seem to have forgotten who pays their high salaries and we urge everyone who has an issue to use every opportunity to chase SCC including the Formal Complaint process and legally enforceable Freedom Of Information request system ..... or there is no hope of improvement ..... THE LATEST 12/7/2026 The chase goes on with scores more un answered communications trying to get some non existent common sense out of SC....... How can so many highly paid people be so stupid ? ....... or are they just deaf ? ........ or just nasty ? ............ THE LATEST 11/8/2026 many scores more attempts to communicate with SC but they continue to just blank us ............

I have NEVER in 48 years known a welfare support fund so awkward, uncaring and ridiculously heartless. You ask any other council for help and they award you and look at your circumstance. Shropshire council will make you wait a week for a reply and then ask you for 45 pieces of information before they pass u £20 to help with food, they want families bank accounts. 3 months of statements. An hour interview on phone being questioned in detail. Send them I.D even though you on file and they had all this 5 times before. Absolute ballache to get any sort of help they make u jump through hoops. Then when you provide it all they ask you for something else and make you wait anothet couple of days. The support fund was to help people in crisis. If Shropshire council need to change anythibg then MAYBE put normal people with a heart in the department for helping otbers, it’s like completing an exam and then a week of terrorisation just for them to pass you something out the fund that was INTENDED TO HELP IN CRISIS. Your looking 2 weeks to even assess your application and they will make that as hard and long and drawn out as possible, PLEASE PLEASE put people in this department who understand crisis and despair. Not judgmental teacher like people who question your whole life to help you get a meal. THE SUPPORT FUND IS TO HELP PPL, THEY DO ANYTHING NOT TO HELP YOU, so so ridiculous and awkward the team in this department. Please do a review and feedback for this and see how many ppl they REFUSE to help, just because they can. Worst council I have ever dealt with

This council have caused us as a whole family severe distress ovwr several years. Their incompetence and outright refusal to follow their statutory duties is dispicable. Distress to children through their education departments, which has caused lasting damage. Distress to adults through their inability to handle and calculate council tax bills and complaints properly, whilst refusing to acknowledge their failings and deal with it appropriately. Would rather cause the family massive issues than admit fault and rectify. No wonder they are failing financially, who wants to pay a council that doesnt function and is literally out to get you. Glad we moved away, but it hasnt ended for us. This is the most corrupt and inept council I have ever had the most displeasure of dealing with.

All people applying for a Blue Badge are infirm and many so elderly they haven't even got a mobile let alone be able to go online. I am in my eighties myself and tried to help a 90 yr old for her daughter. I rang the Blue Badge number and was flabbergasted that there was no other way to get a form than to download it and print out 26 pages. I told her we couldn't do this. She was extremely unhelpful and rude and cut me off. We all pay council tax and should NOT be treated in this way by people, and this department, who are supposed to help us.

Terrible experience, they sent me a summons for non payment of council tax adding more on top but never sent me a bill first. I wrote to them no reply, I have tried multiple times to ring the numbers provided on the summons but i just get put in a queue which only gets longer started off with a waiting time of 20 minutes which went up to 26 minutes after waiting for 10 minutes already so i continued to wait and the wait time continued to increase. I went on the website got no where and ended up messaging them through the website and it says it could take 21 days to reply to my message. Seems impossible to contact them regarding this issue, they appear to be just not answering phones or replying to letters, I'm unable to attend court as i'm to unwell to do so, I'm worried that i will be forced to pay the extra costs of £38 x2 which is ridiculous. Awful company.

They won't touch the A5 which is the dirtiest road in Britain. It isn't National Highways; its your responsibility.

I don't think anybody actually works there any more. You can't speak to a human and the AI is useless.

Cant even get through.
Stupid automated service.
Spent 2 hrs trying to order a bin, another hr trying to tell them about an address change.
Gave up useless

I asked for a road sign to be installed, they said that they are busy and they will not bother with it. I tried to contact them for other matters and they do not know who is responsible for. They always replied extremely impolitely . Useless people, waste of money their salaries. Cows would make a better job. Well, no surprise the they are going for bankruptcy

Tin-eared and incompetent

Dont seem to be able to contact them, are they even a service?
I have been trying to set up my council tax so I can pay, I camt do it online as you need a council tax number which I do not have, I've emailed numerous times to try get some contact, how do I set this up without any service? I've not had any letters either to get a number to set up a account to pay. Communication rated zero.

Shropshire homepoint you should be ashamed of yourselves throwing people out 2 days before christmas from a homeless shelter in Telford saying there not priority, they wouldn't be in there if they are not in need, You are disgrace,and should be named and shamed for doing this, you have no heart to put people on the streets 2 days before christmas., you have been given money to help get people off the streets, yet you are putting them on the streets when they are in a homeless shelter, its disgusting what you are doing, How can you treat people like this, your a disgrace. Telford HMO, run by shropshire council, Your a joke, Named and shamed.

Still waiting for my call to be answered, 4th call in a week. Nobody answers, been on hold almost 25 minutes now. Was told to email in but that was 5 days ago and still waiting for an email response, still waiting. Appauling service! This isn't customer service as customers aren't actually being served at all!

What a shocking service. I am trying to talk with them about my rates. Forget the telephone as they simply dont answer, hence I thought I would try an email at which I had a reply informing emails are no longer monitored. If a business it would be bankrupt. You simply can not make yourself totally unavailable and charge me council tax with no service or Customer Care. What a very poor set up.

My father died with debt and had little to no money, SCC demanded I paid them everything out of his account. They said 'every penny counts' when recovering debt. They wanted evidence of his funeral costs, it felt like i was on trial and they did not believe me at such a sad time. There was no compassion. Their pressured guilt approach was so stressful and overwhelming. I just gave them everything in my dads account and paid for the funeral my self. Horrible people.