2026 STC AGM — CALM AND PEACEFUL, BUT…

Those who regularly attend STC AGMs know that these meetings are usually full of drama, fiery speeches, backstabbing, and avoidance of real problems. I have been to many AGMs of STC, and none of them was boring. This year, STC surprised me because the AGM was rather peaceful, calm, and civilised.

I used the word “rather” because anyone who knows even a little about the dynamics of local government spotted two significant and potentially explosive developments.
First: after months of absence, the Town Clerk went on sick leave. Maybe I am becoming cynical, but personally I smell something rotten here.
Second: in my view, STC once again ignored its Standing Orders, and this time I have asked BDC to clarify the matter. More on all of this in a moment. Let’s start with the basics.

ATTENDANCE
Two councillors were missing: Ricky Holland and Luke Shorthose. The public gallery had 14 attendees, and among them, as is now traditional, our County Councillor Sarah Reaney.

How about our Bolsover District Councillors? To that I say: what councillors? Not a single one showed up. They never do. All four were elected on a Labour ticket, and in my view, none of them seems to care unless there is money in it for them.

I also have to mention the owner of NG Dental, who was also in the chamber. Why do I mention this? The NG Dental Care practice has been trying for years to secure an NHS contract to provide care for Shirebrook residents. After significant investment in their private practice, the owner has been working to open their doors to those who prefer NHS treatments. For me, it’s weird that the government can find billions of illegal immigrants and so-called gender change treatments, but there is no money to provide NHS dentists’ care for working-class towns. That tells you who the darling of the ruling class is, eh?

I noticed the dentist spoke at length with Cllr Sarah Reaney, so perhaps our County Councillor will be able to help. I encourage everyone to keep their fingers crossed for NG Dental Care and Cllr Sarah Reaney.

MOVING ON…
Before we get to the juicier parts of the AGM, I need to show my readers the updated STC political map. Recently, Neil Bradbury and Kerry Kirk responded to my request to declare their political affiliation. Cllr Bradbury declared Reform UK, and Cllr Kirk declared Independent. It is telling that not a single Labour councillor has declared their affiliation. What does that tell you?


LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS
This time, there was no drama and no surprises. Almost everyone stayed in their positions. The only change worth noting is that STC has appointed a new Chair of the Operations Committee. The position has been taken by Cllr Neil Bradbury.

Generally, most STC councillors are still at the learning stage. Nine out of sixteen have served for less time than I did. Fortunately, their “training” is taking place in a much friendlier atmosphere — no one is throwing their things around, no one is threatening and insulting them, no one is punching their laptops, no one is hiding facts and documents from them (I hope). STC has taken a step towards normality. At least on the surface. Yes, dear reader, you have guessed correctly. After a few paragraphs of sweetening STC up, it is time for the brutal truth about what went wrong.

STC’S PROPER OFFICER PROBLEM
STC has once again appointed Cllr Steve Singleton as Proper Officer. In my view, this is in breach of the Council’s own Standing Orders and inconsistent with established local government law and practice. This time I could not hold back — I said so out loud during the meeting. That didn’t change anything- STC went on with this weird motion.

To be clear: my objection is not to Cllr Singleton personally. He was nominated by the Chair and voted in by his colleagues. The problem lies with the appointment, not with the man. So, why it is such a problem for me?

Standing Order 15(a) is unambiguous. The Proper Officer is “the clerk or other staff member(s) nominated by the council.” A councillor is not a staff member — they are an elected representative, a legally distinct category under the Local Government Act 1972.

Cllr Singleton argued the appointment was temporary, due to the Town Clerk’s absence. Even taking that argument at its most generous, STC’s own Standing Orders do not permit it. A temporary appointment is still an appointment.

All of STC’s recent problems stem from ignoring the law and STC’s own Standing Orders. Now, they are sliding back into old habits- ignoring the law when it’s convenient. I tried to ignore that, but I can’t. Therefore, I’m referring the matter to the Monitoring Officer of Bolsover District Council. You can read my email to the Monitoring Officer below the article. I want to know if we can break the rules just because it’s convenient to us.

TOWN CLERK
Five months. That is how long Shirebrook Town Council has operated without its Town Clerk present at meetings. In that time, not a single co-opted councillor has witnessed how this council’s most senior officer conducts herself in the chamber of STC.

They have not seen how FOI requests have been handled — or rather, not handled. In my view, the Town Clerk has ignored FOI requests because answering them honestly would be deeply uncomfortable for the Council. The pellet matter, the solar panel matter, the question of family members in council employment, the printing of booklets — every FOI I have submitted on these subjects has gone unanswered or partially unanswered. Why? Because in my view, honest answers would expose decisions the Council would prefer to remain hidden.

I do not file FOI requests for fun. I file them because I have seen something that needs confirmation before I take the next step. The lack of confirmation is itself evidence, in my view, that STC is still operating in the old management style it should have left behind. The swamp is drying out, but it is still there. Only residents can finish the job by voting Labour out of the council in 2027.

I assume that none of the co-opted councillors has looked at the pellet invoices — they were buried under the work left behind by the previous administration. That is why I am pasting one of those invoices again for all to see. This invoice dates from July 2021. This and many more invoices like that convinced me that the Leisure Centre pellet contract is, in my view, corrupt.

No meter readings. No units of fuel specified, and “quantity” quoted as kWh, which is impossible. Arithmetic errors in the figures. And payment is approved regardless. You would never pay a bill like this in your own home. So why has the Council been paying bills like this? Why didn’t the Responsible Finance Officer flag those errors? Town Clerk! You there? Can you answer those questions? Oh, wait. First, she ignored it with the blessing of the Labour Party; now, as Labour falls apart, she is… sick. Yeah… right.

In my view, these are questions the current councillors should be asking. The net-zero contract is still in place. It was signed for twenty years. The residents of Shirebrook are entitled to know how it was approved, what it has cost so far, and whether the Council plans to investigate those weird invoices and activity around pellet deliveries.

MARKET SQUARE
BDC cooked it up, and now people blame STC while District councillors are nowhere to be found. Labour at its best! Once again, the Chair of the STC Market sub-committee confirmed that no one is sure when the new Market Square will open. BDC changed the term so many times that no one believes them anymore.

BDC’s behaviour is, in my view, strange. They changed the plans, they delivered something that almost everyone questions, and now they are threatening to sue STC if STC refuses to sign it off. Just look at those sharp metal edges on the flowerbeds. I took this picture on 14th May.

Can anyone be surprised that STC does not want to sign off on this? It is a tragedy waiting to happen.

I will be honest — in the photograph, it does not look as alarming as it does in reality. If you do not believe me, walk down to the Market. Look at those edges and imagine a child tripping, falling head-first onto the corner.

I will also note that these flowerbeds on right side of picture are, as I understand it, sitting where parking spaces for blue badge holders and electric vehicles were supposed to be. The Labour Party used to be the party that cared for the most vulnerable and the environment, even at the cost of the working class’s quality of life. In my view, that sentiment was abandoned a long time ago. I have no idea what they stand for anymore…

EMERGENCY MOTIONS
STC passed several emergency motions to keep the Council afloat while the Town Clerk is away. This will cost us. If I understand it well, we will be paying for two Town Clerks — because STC needs to hire an interim Town Clerk. Double-digit tax rise, here we come.

PUMP TRACK AND LEISURE
STC remains laser-focused on Leisure. Not safety. Not the deficit. Not the questions of governance that residents keep raising. Leisure. Why? Because, in my view, leisure is easy. Apply for grants, vote a few times, done. It looks good o social media. It does not require anyone on the Council to confront the harder questions.

In my view, there is a lack of will in STC to address the difficult issues — financial discipline, procedural compliance, and the cultural problems this Council has carried for years. And residents will pay for that absence of will. Sooner than they think.

FIREWORKS
STC is in deficit. Cllr Andrew Stevens proposed to temporarily pause extravagant spending such as the Fireworks display. It did not land well with Labour. It did not land well with those who can afford constant tax rises. So we will be spending £15,000 on ten minutes of fun. Hooray.

SPENDING
One of the residents questioned new spending ideas. This chapter needs some space, because that resident was spot on.

STC plans to spend a lot of money while running a deficit, and after raising taxes for a decade. Yes, some of those ideas fall into the “spend to save” category — and no one who has not been a councillor can fully understand how that works. For example, tablets will save money in the long run.

But here is where I agree with that resident: until the finances are sorted and straightened out, STC should put any new projects on hold. Full stop. Fighting the deficit should be the main focus. Instead, STC keeps adding costly ideas while doing nothing about the deficit, overblown wages, overblown costs, and overblown employment. Enough to say: the Finance Committee has not met in… a year? Let me check on the STC website…

LAST FINANCE MEETING WAS ON 15 JANUARY 2025
In other words: non-stop tax rises, two consecutive deficits, and the Finance Committee has not met in sixteen months.

I do not think the councillors see what is coming. The NNDR for the Pavilion will cost thousands, which are not in the budget. Income from the Market will plummet — because, in my view, BDC botched that investment and the redesigned space is hostile to stall holders. No room for delivery vehicles. No room for a burger van. No room for traders’ cars.

In my view, BDC has killed Shirebrook Market. That is my opinion, but it is also shared by many residents and stallholders. Someone even made a meme with a tombstone bearing the name of Shirebrook Market. I made my own version.


OPTIMISTIC END
Do I have to? Really? Ehhh… OK. I will do it. But only because so many people were so happy that this AGM did not end like previous ones — with a scandal.

First: I believe that this composition of the council has a majority of members who think about the town, rather than about party loyalty or personal gain. The old clique is almost gone. There is a breath of fresh air. You can see and feel that the main focus of STC is Shirebrook, not the Labour Party or anyone’s career.

Second: as much as I disagree with the focus on Leisure, I think that can be fixed easily. Residents just have to elect people with a clear focus on the issues Labour has neglected. STC needs someone focused on crime prevention and someone focused on financial health.

Third: politics is dynamic, and a single week can sometimes change everything. But I genuinely believe Shirebrook is sick and tired of Labour, and that after the next elections, we will no longer be regarded as a Labour stronghold. They need to face the consequences of their politics.

Fourth: this AGM proved that things can be civil. With Labour losing ground, they have become less aggressive. No one attacked anyone. No one insulted anyone. No one shouted at anyone.

THE END
Despite these few rays of sunlight, I still predict a storm. STC has barely climbed out of one political crisis and, in my view, is about to fall into another — a financial and structural one. The monster that Labour swept under the carpet is about to come out, and on top of that, we have an issue with the Town Clerk. If my suspicions about the Town Clerk situation prove correct, the matter could become very serious for STC.

Sylwester Zwierzynski
Lead picture: made with Midjounrey
End comic strip: made with ChatGPT Image 2.0


DRAFT LETTER TO MONITORING OFFICER
To: Monitoring Officer, Bolsover District Council
Subject: Possible breach of Standing Orders — Shirebrook Town Council AGM 13.05.2026

Dear Sir,

I am writing to draw your attention to a procedural matter arising at the Annual General Meeting of Shirebrook Town Council held on 13.5.2026, which I believe may constitute a breach of the Council’s own Standing Orders and potentially of the Local Government Act 1972.

At the meeting, the Chair nominated Councillor Steve Singleton to act as Proper Officer for the meeting, on the basis that the Town Clerk was absent. I raised an objection on the night. The Council proceeded regardless. Standing Order 15(a) of Shirebrook Town Council’s own Standing Orders states:
“The Proper Officer shall be either (i) the clerk or (ii) other staff member(s) nominated by the council to undertake the work of the Proper Officer when the Proper Officer is absent.”

A councillor is not a member of staff. The Local Government Act 1972 treats officers and elected members as legally distinct categories. There is no provision in statute or in STC’s Standing Orders permitting a councillor to be appointed as Proper Officer, even on a temporary basis.

Business transacted at the meeting under this arrangement included the election of Chair and Vice-Chair, committee appointments, and emergency resolutions seems to me questionable. The legal validity of those acts may be invalid as a result.

I would be grateful if you could confirm whether you consider this matter warrants your attention, and if so, what steps you intend to take. It also seems that if my complaint is justified then the Chair of STC and Cllr Steve Singleton should be advised of the correct procedure. I would appreciate explanation in writing.

Yours sincerely,

Sylwester Zwierzynski, resident of Shirebrook