Eleventh Tax Rise in Twelve Years

February 1, 2026

8 minutes read

STC just raised taxes. Does it matter how much? Yes, but what matters more is that this is the eleventh tax rise in 12 years under Labour in STC, and we are still in deficit. During the discussion, three figures were mentioned: 6.76%, 4.77%, and 3.42%. Which of these is your tax rise? Spoiler: before you see your tax bill, it’s three per cent.

NO CHOICE, NO PEACE, YES TO TAX RISE FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
The sad truth is this: the new councillors could have voted against the tax increase, but they didn’t. Old-Labour backed them into a corner. Plugging the deficit left by previous Labour leaders will be far more difficult than it appears at first glance, and Labour needs and wants to share that burden. That’s why Labour baited Reform into a vice position. Now it looks like they work “together” when in reality they are trying to dilute the blame for scandals, deficits, uncontrolled spending and contracts with “friends and family”.

LACK OF REFORM CLLR EXPERIENCE IS NOT THEIR FAULT
Even I, the eternal optimist, must admit that between co-option and the precept meeting, there was simply too little time to initiate any recovery plan. Bah! There wasn’t even enough time to start writing such a plan. Double bah! There wasn’t even enough time to properly review the financial documents from last year. Still- I would vote against tax rise.

Labour achieved what they wanted—the gravy train rolls on. They exploited lack of Reform councillors experience and used them to extend Labour power over STC. The “friends and family” network is safe and going strong.

If I were a councillor, I would have been the only person voting against the tax increase once again, same as I voted when I was on STC. Sadly, I lost my seat, and since then Labour has raised our taxes by £400,000. Good choice, Shirebrook! (I wrote this sarcastically if you didn’t catch it.)

In the last full election, I was 30 votes short of winning my seat back. Maybe next time my readers will drag their spouses and children to vote for the one person who will never vote to increase taxes. One can dream.

SO MUCH TO SHARE AND ONLY TWO PAGES TO DO IT
My self-imposed “two-page limit” is starting to look like a fantasy. So much happened at this meeting that the first draft of this article was seven pages long. So I’ve decided to split it into two parts. This week I’ll present just some observations about councillors’ behaviour. Next week, I’ll focus on financial details and the discussion.

FIRST IMPRESSION
What struck me most when I entered the room? The Chamber is divided—regardless of lofty declarations on Facebook. You could see it in how the councillors sat and in how they spoke. Labour sat on the left side of the Chamber, the rest of the councillors on the right. Left avoided any controversial questions, right asked about… well, this will be in next week article.

PLEASE BE SEATED!
To a casual observer, it might seem insignificant how councillors sit in the Chamber. As a long-time observer of local political life, I know that seating choices are usually deliberate. What’s more, awareness of this choice grows in direct proportion to experience. There are always one or two councillors who sit wherever there’s space, but the vast majority sit in places that meet several criteria important to them.

Councillors most often sit among people they feel sympathy for, share views with, or feel loyalty towards, or, like me, to be closer to action. Only two councillors have no choice where to sit: the Chair and Vice-Chair. They must sit at the “head” of the room regardless of their views or sympathies.

WORKING TOGETHER? MORE LIKE PRETENDING TOGETHER
Setting aside the Chair and Vice-Chair, the remaining councillors grouped into two camps. On the left side: old-Labour. You know—those who led us to the pellet scandal, solar panel scandal, grass cutting scandal, hiring friends and family scandal, fencing scandal, current deficit, and more, more, more.

That left, blind to the corruption and nepotism side, was populated by ancient Fred Gobey, husband of BDC leader Mick Yates, super-ancient Brian Murray-Carr, and freshman Ricky Holland. Then came a shock for me: David Downes. He acted and underlined his Independent status at the co-option meeting, but now it looks like it was just an act. He’s back among his old-Labour friends.

CENTRE? IS THERE ANY CENTRE?
Then there was Shaun Cheeseman on the outskirts of the left, almost in the centre. To be honest, he always sits in the same place, so I don’t know how much I should read into it. His seating wasn’t the only thing unchanged about him since he won his position. He still speaks too quietly, and this time I wasn’t the only one struggling to hear him. The assistant was forced to ask him to speak up and repeat his questions at least twice.

Once again, Cllr Cheeseman, if you read these words, heed my advice: train your voice. You ask the right questions, you seem to care more about the town than your party ticket, and you’re always prepared. You have all the traits of a good councillor, but you speak so quietly that it’s hard to follow your train of thought. I have problems with my hearing due to a work injury. My right ear gave up on me years ago, so I struggle even more than others. Literally—sometimes I see your lips moving, but I hear nothing.

SECOND, SMALLER, BUT FAR MORE OUTSPOKEN GROUPING
Since STC is still missing a few councillors, there were several free places—almost all of them in the centre of the Chamber. No one sat there. The centre of the council’s horseshoe of seats was completely and uncomfortably empty. A second grouping of councillors sat on the right side of the table: almost vis-à-vis Labour. On that side sat Shelly Arapi, Kerry Kirk, and Oliver Kershaw-Dickson. I assume Neil Bradbury would have sat there too if he’d been present. Where would Martin Barber sit if he weren’t on vacation? I’m not sure.

This second group asked the most substantial questions. Not only because they are new, inexperienced, but also because they noticed more… unusual figures. There were few jaw-dropping questions. I will write about it in next article, but here I need to mention one fact.

SHE DID IT AGAIN!
Oliver Kershaw-Dickson asked why the numbers presented by the Town Clerk at the previous meeting didn’t correspond to those presented at this meeting. Yup! The Town Clerk did it again! Two weeks was enough to substantially change numbers… Labour reaction? Business as usual. Other side reaction- how is that even possible? My answer: with this Town Clerk, everything is possible, and to be honest, this “edit of numbers” is nothing compared to what she did with the Finance Report 22/23.

THE EXPLANATION? WAIT FOR IT!
The explanation the Town Clerk provided was not only infantile but also so transparent that the whole room cringed. Even Labour. Of course, the Town Clerk is not in the room, so she took her sweet time answering all questions. Let me tell you – communication was slow, and it was by design. Every time someone asked a good question, we waited for minutes for an answer from the Town Clerk’s home.

This is why Town Clerk “works from home”—new councillors won’t realise how manipulative she is if they never meet her. You can’t have a proper conversation with someone who is not in the room and takes sooooo much time to answer any question. Councillors won’t see her body language, shifts in tone of voice, or her overall lack of composure under scrutiny. That is a reason why she is “working from home”.

Among those who asked the most jaw-dropping questions were Shelley Arapi, Andrew Stevens, and Oliver Kershaw-Dickson. The most active member on the left was Mick Yates, but his only real input was aimed at selling the STC property to patch the hole in the budget. Once again, Labour will sell out something valuable to cover up mismanagement. I will describe it all next week, but for now, I need to stop here and apologise—I don’t know how this happened, but in previous articles I misspelt Cllr Oliver Kershaw-Dickson’s surname.

IT’S OLIVER KERSHAW-DICKSON! NOT DIXON!
There is no excuse for it, and I sincerely apologise. It happened to me before, with a misspelling of the Town Clerk’s surname. I apologise for that too. There is no excuse for it, and it’s a massive blemish on my blogger record. My fault—straight up. Recently, I started using AI to edit and correct typos and grammar in my articles, but I never thought to fine-tune it to pay attention to names. I will fix it now. It should not happen again.

WAIT FOR IT! WAIT FOR IT! WAIT FOR IT!
One more thing about the Town Clerk. In a normal council, the Town Clerk is in the room and can answer questions directly and quickly. “Our” Town Clerk is SpEcIaL. She prefers to take her sweet time when answering. She listens to audio so she can hear what is going on, but she never answers via audio. She TYPES answers and assistant READING them to the councillors. Does it sound like the third decade of the twenty-first century for you? Or rather as something complicated by design? For a reason.

Of course, this creates delays in response time. Massive delays. Sometimes this “waiting time” was so sweet and long that councillors waiting for an answer started discussing something else. It’s insane.

That’s not all—on two occasions the Town Clerk refused to give an answer because she was at home. And the relevant documents were in Town Hall, so she didn’t have access to them. Convenient, right? That’s how she wastes our money and time and avoids answering the most important questions. That’s how she creates distance between herself and councillors. Does it fit the “working together” narrative? For me, it’s the direct opposition to this policy.

CHAIR GETS PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE
Our new old-Labour Leader decided again to block residents from asking questions. Again. Labour does not like questions, so once again, my questions (promptly sent and confirmed months ago) were ignored. But there were more ignored residents. Among those who had questions prepared was ex-cllr Tony Burns. I still think he was a good councillor and he should never have resigned. It was a huge mistake on his part. He should have just bitten the bullet and done his job to the best of his abilities to the end of his term—as I did.

I think he rubbed a few bad people in STC the wrong way. Especially those who turned a blind eye to corruption and money for “friends and family.” There is no doubt that Tony Burns, as a previous councillor, has unique knowledge. Chair Dale Smith could have exercised the right to suspend Standing Orders, as previous Chair Sarah Brooks did on a few occasions, and allowed him to give a statement. The Chair could have listened to him, but he didn’t. Why? Because Dale Smith is hard-core old-Labour. Anyone speaking the truth is automatically an enemy of old-Labour. That is the sad reality of Shirebrook Town Council in the pre-audit era.

This passive-aggressive behaviour toward Tony Burns is very unbecoming. A Leader should not behave like that, but this is what you get when Labour starts to use words like “together” as an excuse for their shenanigans.

TWO-PAGE LIMIT – UNACHIEVABLE
At the beginning of the year, I tried to impose a two-page limit per article on myself. If I’d stuck to it, I would have had to stop a page and a half ago, while in reality, I haven’t even touched on the most important events of this meeting. So I’ll summarise my impression: Labour is playing the long game. They not only aim to blur the lines between themselves and the rest of the councillors, but also to put the blame for town problems on everyone new in the Chamber.

They hope this town is still their stronghold. They hope residents will stay home on election day in 2027, and that they’ll win with their hard-core base vote power. Just like in every previous election, they won only because Shirebrook always has the lowest voter turnout. People who lost hope are the easiest to rule and exploit. And Shirebrook is the best example of it.

Socialists never change—they love YOUR money. And the pellet scandal is still unresolved.