Some time ago, a reader of Shirebook247.com accused me that everything I write portrays our town in an unfavourable light. According to this reader, my articles are primarily negative, and I only focus on the bad things. However, his message to me was very constructive and polite, so I took his accusations as a challenge to improve. As a result, I decided that I would focus on finding the positive features of our town and then write an article about it. This is the result of these efforts.
SHIREBROOK, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
The first days of my search were nightmarish. I couldn’t find anything worth describing, anything that wasn’t a cliché and simply flattering local patriotism. I lived in multiple UK towns, so it’s tough for me to find something unique that I didn’t see before. After browsing through the blog archives, I was dismayed that the reader mentioned above was absolutely right. Paradoxically – I am a cheerful, merry person. Still, my texts give the impression of the author as an illusionless, cynical, critical malcontent. I am not like that, but unfortunately, I write this way for a good, justified reason.
Interesting things often happen in the town- just like in any other town I have lived in. Many wonderful people live here – just as in any other place I have lived before. Writing about this would not inspire any change- which is precisely what Shirebrook needs, in my opinion. However, as my blog focuses on Shirebrook Town Council issues rather than the town itself- most of the writing is indeed negative. It’s just that there is rarely anything worthy of praise happening in the STC itself.
The reader I mentioned in the introduction got into a conversation with me. At one point, I asked him if he could tell me what he finds outstandingly positive about Shirebrook. He replied that he was proud of the people who live here – because they help each other. He added that he was proud of the sports clubs and some historical figures born in the town. But, as I mentioned- I have lived in many cities, and this kind of thing is typical, ordinary.
So when looking for topics for this article, I focused on finding things unique to Shirebrook. I wanted to find something that was not available in the cities I lived in. I tried to find as many genuinely unique things as possible to be proud of. This whole creative process has opened my eyes to some facts that I was not previously aware of. I am sure that people who have lived in Shirebrook since birth will find some points in the following article to make them even more proud of Shirebrook.
TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND… ENJOY IT!
People who live in Shirebrook their whole life don’t even notice that- clean air. Among many other towns, I used to live in were a few big ones: Liverpool, Doncaster, Coventry and Sheffield. As I have advanced asthma, clean air is vital to me. Quality of life goes downhill when you feel like you’re being suffocated all the time and every breath of air tastes like you’re licking the exhaust pipe of an old diesel. So sometime after moving to Shirebrook, the specialist at the Shires Health Center who oversees my asthma management decided to reduce my medication dose. My asthma attacks have almost completely disappeared. This has had a hugely positive effect on my well-being and my whole life.
I used never to leave home without my asthma medication. Today, the inhaler sits in a drawer and is used so infrequently that I have to monitor its expiry date, not when it runs out. For me, as for any other person with respiratory problems – clean air is a huge positive of living in Shirebrook. Some time ago, I came across a map showing our county’s air cleanliness. Shirebrook was in the leading position (of course, excluding the part of the county that lies within the Peak District National Park). I tried to find this map to present to readers to confirm my words but only managed to find an awful copy.
We owe the clean air mainly to the absence of heavy industry and the distance from major transport routes, which can be both positive and negative. However, I place this fact on the positive side.
TAKE A HIKE, MIKE!
Again, I am writing from the point of view of a person who has lived most of his life in a large metropolis. The surroundings of our town are ideal for lovers of walks and recreational cycling. Hills, beautiful views, forests, ponds and lakes, rivers crossing flower-scented meadows, charming nooks far from the hustle and bustle of modern civilisation – we have so much beauty that we could export it all over the world. People living in bigger cities sometimes have access to some dusty, stuffy park with grey and life-weary greenery. We? We have an endless wealth of healthy, clean, green space in every direction outside the town.
DEMOCRACY IS BACK, BABY!
We have a functioning, real, working local democracy in Shirebrook for the first time in decades! There are representatives of more than one political option in the authorities, which means that the authorities have to prove themselves in their work for the residents. The opposition, in turn, has to actively criticise, propose alternatives, reach out to residents with that information which the authorities would like to leave in the shadows.
This is happening. This is a good thing. Even if you call me “Scum” under Facebook posts-you have to admit that democracy works better when there is an active and effective opposition. If you think there should be no opposition, I have sad news for you – you are either a fascist or a communist, not a democrat. I suggest you move to South Korea, Venezuela or Cuba. There the socialists have no opposition, and there is a paradise… Oh, no… wait… it’s hell there…
WEALTHY TOWN IS HAPPY TOWN
Suppose nobody but me has pointed out how much tax we pay compared to other cities in the District. In that case, it means that either nobody has so far been bothered by the amount of tax or the Labour Party has been really good at hiding it, and nobody knows about it. If you don’t mind taxes, then you are a rich man for whom a few hundred pounds this way or that way makes no difference to the bottom line – my personal congratulations to you.
The fact is – despite Shirebrook’s dubious reputation as a poor town, by paying several hundred per cent more in local taxes than residents of all the surrounding towns, we are proving that we are more prosperous than rumour has it. How could I not put that on the positive side? So Shirebrook- we are a rich town! OK- I write that with a sneer because the truth is that until now, no one here realised how unfair the taxes we pay are.
But the fact is that most of us pay our damn taxes honestly and on time. The fact that we can afford them didn’t just fall out of the sky – the people of Shirebrook earn that money honestly. We didn’t get it in the form of welfare payments. We don’t reach out for handouts. Whether in the days of coal mines or the days of big warehouses, the people of Shirebrook are not afraid of hard work. This is another huge positive, as a group of hard and honest working people are more likely to succeed than those who sit back, complain and do nothing to change their fortunes.
The age-old principle is that wealth is born from work, planning and saving, not from benefits, handouts and laziness – a fact somehow evaded by the Labour Party moaning that the government has restored the original amount of Universal Credit. From here, we can add another positive to the list: Shirebrook is getting richer because people living here are working hard. Let me say more: every honest taxpayer should be proud of themselves. You pay more taxes than tens of thousands of people living in Bolsover District, and you don’t give a damn. You even continue to vote for those who tax you the most! Even though STC spent that money on toilets costing 20k a year or heating council buildings in August.
UNEMPLOYMENT? WHAT UNEMPLOYMENT?
It is also fair to say that jobs are plentiful in Shirebrook – another positive. This is, of course, thanks to SportsDirect and the wave of business that has followed in the wake of this behemoth. All in all, then, we have another positive aspect of our town: a low unemployment rate.
While scouring the internet for an exciting topic to blog about, I found a map of unemployment in Derbyshire by constituency. For the convenience of readers, I have circled Bolsover District with a red line.
After a while, I thought of adding a description of each constituency, but I guess that makes the map less readable. However, I hope this doesn’t prevent readers from drawing their own conclusions.
The facts are these:
– Shirebrook North has unemployment at around 2.35%
– Shirebrook South has an unemployment rate of approx. 3.15%.
– average unemployment in Shirebrook is 2.75%
– average unemployment in the District is 3.8% which is over one per cent higher than the average unemployment in Shirebrook
– average unemployment in the county is 3.4% which is 0.65% higher than the average unemployment in Shirebrook
– national average unemployment is 5.1% which is almost twice as high as in Shirebrook
One small digression as I can’t help but comment on this. After Brexit, which in the eyes of Remoaners was supposed to be the end of the world and a complete economic disaster, after the pandemic, which was a disaster in itself, after all the bad turmoil – unemployment is 5.1%. Do you remember what unemployment was when the last Labour Party government left Downing Street? If you don’t know, I looked it up for you – unemployment after the Labour Party was…. 8%! Labour Party, yeah, right. More like “Social benefits and men with cervix party…
SILENCE IS GOLDEN!
Another argument from the point of view of someone who has lived most of his life in a large metropolis. Shirebrook (at least the area in which I live) is quiet. After dark, the air is not disturbed by the constant sirens of ambulances, police and fire brigades. No drunken groups are roaming the streets loudly postulating the need to find trouble. After Friday and Saturday nights, the roads and pavements are not strewn with rubbish, broken bottles and the remains of undigested, prematurely expelled meals from takeaways. I don’t know if I’m getting older or if it’s just my character – personally, I prefer peace and quiet to the lavish nightlife.
FREE PARKING- MONOPOLY STYLE!
Again, those who have lived here since birth probably don’t even notice – free parking in the town centre. In larger cities, parking bans are the norm. If you can park, a council employee is peeking around the corner just waiting to give you a ticket for not paying your parking fee. Even if these fees are small, frequent visits to the town/city centre will make the money you spend on parking a burden in your budget.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
If you plan to buy a property, you must follow the three most important criteria: location, location, location. If you are buying to speculate or rent – congratulations. You are brave and rich. However, if you purchased a house in Shirebrook to live on your own in peace and quiet, then I have some good news for you.
Of course, you want the value of your home to rise. Generally, property prices are rising everywhere, but in some places, they are rising more than others (as this article is positive, I won’t mention the threat of interest rate rises and how this will affect the market). Price growth is an important factor when deciding to buy a home. However, if you want to find out if people like living where they live, then you need to look at something else- the turnover in the housing market in a particular region. When analysing the quality of life, it is not price growth that is taken into account, but the number of properties changing hands.
If people are happy, want to stay in a place, put down roots, start a family, they will not sell their house. So the fewer people want to get rid of a home in a particular area, the more likely it is that the place is good to live in. So, how does our town compare to other population centres in the District in this respect? Since this statistic is in this article, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that this is another thing we can be proud of as residents. Despite the bad reputation of our town, people who live here DO NOT WANT TO MOVE OUT. So they see us badly on the outside, but once someone moves in, we view our immediate neighbourhood very positively. So positive that we have no competition in the region. Here is the proof:
Purely out of journalistic curiosity, I also looked at the changes in property prices in our town over the last few years. The reality is… quite shocking. In a positive sense for those who purchased a home before 2014, and in a negative sense for those planning to buy now.
CONTINUOUS EFFORT, NOT STRENGTH OR INTELLIGENCE IS THE KEY TO UNLOCKING OUR POTENTIAL (said some guy)
This article is already way longer than I expected, so I think it’s time to end it on a positive note, of course. In my personal opinion, Shirebrook has vast untapped potential. Bad financial decisions made years ago by the Labour Party are dragging the whole town down. There will be no money for youth programs when you spend a hundred thousand on a loo in five years. When youths are bored, they mess around and look for trouble. If there were money to keep them occupied, it would eliminate a lot of antisocial behaviour. This would increase the sense of security of the elderly population. It would also reduce expenditure on repairing the damage. This would free up funds for other purposes. There are more such chains of cause and effect due to lack of money. Sitting at the STC, I can see it like the back of my hand.
Therefore, wanting to end with a cheerful accent, I will write this: the day will come when the Labour Party will be punished by voters. Then, someday, someone else will come to power. Someone determined to show that things can be better, someone brave and stubborn enough to move heaven and earth to change what is wrong and promote what is right. Only then will Shirebrook flourish.
We have potential—a huge potential. But to unlock it, STC needs to be led by people who have imagination, courage, ambition, persistence and heart. They need to be focused on Shirebrook- not on Langwith Parish Council or Bolsover District Council or their own Party interest or rich friends business problems. For Shirebrook to shake off the shackles of its mining past – the STC needs to be led by people who look to the future, not the past.
The last good thing I see in Shirebrook is that there are many such people in this town: since I started working as a councillor, I have met more and more of them. So the question is: will they be brave enough to join me in my mission to change the town for the better?
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
Pictures: ONS, rightmove.co.uk
Lead picture: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
