Verbal Outburst by the STC Chair

I’m increasingly turning my attention to BDC, but that doesn’t mean I’ve taken my eye off STC. Oh no! I will keep watching closely what happens at STC, because I can see that some old habits haven’t gone away: the instinct to keep things behind closed doors and to sweep discrepancies under the carpet.

That culture helped drag STC into crisis in the first place, and it doesn’t disappear just because the faces around the table change. To be fair, the current council is a very different animal. Most of the new councillors are working hard to get STC back on its feet, and personally I have no doubt about that.

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
Some of that work is very visible from the public seats, and I want to credit the councillors whose contributions I’ve seen most often at the meetings I attend (in alphabetical order): Shelley Arapi, Martin Barber, Neil Bradbury, Shaun Cheeseman, Oliver Kershaw-Dickson, Steve Singleton and Andrew Stevens.

Please don’t read this as a list of the best councillors. It’s a list of the councillors who stand out most in meetings. That list says more about what I can see than about who is pulling their weight. I’m not a councillor any more, I’m not at every meeting, and I don’t see the committee work, the emails or the hours of unglamorous graft done away from the public. Councillors who speak less in meetings are not necessarily doing less, and I’m not suggesting they are.

Sadly, despite the massive improvement in the quality of STC councillors’ work, the council still lacks someone who knows how to tighten the financial belt. Someone who can say: “No, we don’t have the money for that. End of discussion.”

ONE MORE THING BEFORE I START
This article is about the last STC Full Council meeting, held on 14 October 2026. However, instead of the usual full report, I’m going to present something more exciting. I’ve decided to stop writing full meeting reports. Each one takes me about 8–10 hours, and with my working hours, I simply don’t have that kind of time to listen back to recordings and write detailed reports.

From now on, I will just cover the most important events and discussion points, the overall vibe and the technical details. Basically, I’ll focus on what matters and cut out all the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. If you prefer a drier style of reporting, please refer to the official minutes on the STC website.

STC IS STILL UNDER LABOUR LEADERSHIP!
Just like in national politics, Labour is weak, but because the opposition is split, inexperienced and far less politically calculating, Labour still runs the show. Imagine that: out of 16 STC councillors, by my count only 4 are Labour, and they still hold the helm with the support of some Independent councillors. I emailed every councillor asking for their political affiliation, and those four were the only ones who didn’t reply. Two of them won their seats at the election on the Labour ticket. The other two were co-opted, and both are prominent, active Labour campaigners.

The Chair of STC, Dale Smith, is still a Labour Party member. He supposedly agreed to an interview with S247, but as the days and weeks go by, he still can’t manage to set a date. It’s a bit like MP Natalie Fleet: first “yes”, then silence, ghosting, ignoring… I warned readers not to hold their breath for an interview with a Labour member. Once again, I was right: this is the third Labour Chair of STC who hasn’t given S247 an interview despite my persistent efforts.

‘THANKS, BUT NO THANKS’ WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE
I’ve been waiting since 18 August, when I published my invitation on this blog, for you to find the courage to meet me, or simply to say: “I don’t want to do it. Thanks, but no thanks.” But I want to offer my readers every possible point of view, so my invitation remains open. Whenever you want to speak to a resident without playing politics, I’m here. Drop me an email with a place and date, and I’ll be there with my recording device and a sheet of paper full of questions. Ready when you are.

Meanwhile I will meet with our representatives who are not scared to go on record.

HISTORY IS MADE BY THOSE WHO SHOW UP
Eight residents attended the last Full Council meeting. You might think that isn’t many, but it’s a huge improvement on when I was elected in 2021. Back then, the public seats were always empty.

I can’t make every meeting, but Full Council meetings should be a highlight for anyone who wants our town to go from being BDC’s dumping ground and Labour’s cash cow to a leader in the region.

That’s why I encourage everyone reading this: come to Full Council from time to time. Look councillors in the eye, listen to them, watch how they behave. Tell your friends, neighbours and colleagues about your experience. You live in a democracy, but how often have you experienced it live outside election day? It’s a real eye-opener.

SO, WHO DIDN’T SHOW UP?
Shirebrook’s Labour district councillors are invited to every STC Full Council meeting. None of them came, and I can’t remember any of them ever attending (apart those whe were STC and BDC at the same time). At this point, in my view, relations between BDC and STC could hardly be worse (its like quiet war). The dispute over the market building, aired in public at the electors meeting, is only the most visible part of it.

13 of the 16 STC councillors attended. Three sent apologies, which the council accepted: Cllrs Martin Barber, Luke Shorthose and Michael Yates. To be blunt, in my view the meeting ran in a noticeably calmer and more constructive atmosphere without Cllr Yates in the room.

DALE SMITH’S OUTBURST
In the Facebook teaser for this article, I promised to show a video recording of Dale Smith’s verbal outburst. Long story short: Cllr Shelley Arapi (Ind) told the meeting that, according to the cash book, the bar at the Leisure Centre had spent over £4,000 on restocking but recorded only £1,400 in income. She said this didn’t add up. She also told the meeting that stock-taks had been carried out since she became a councillor in December 2025, and that she had not received the report from it, despite asking for it.

Midway through her speech, the council’s Chair, Cllr Dale Smith (Labour), interrupted her. He gave no reason for the interruption. When she tried to finish, he started shouting at her and talking over her. Her question was never completed. Whether or not that was the intention, the effect was that the most important point of the evening so far was derailed. It’s hard to convey in writing how it sounded in the room, but it felt like the days of former STC Chair Chris Kane had come back.

CLLR SHELLEY ARAPI – BRAVO!
Cllr Shelley Arapi is 100% right to ask those questions, just as I was 100% right to ask about the discrepancies and the massive increase in pellet spending. She is not only entitled to see those documents; it is her duty to her voters to scrutinise them. Councillors have a common-law right to see the council documents they need to do their job, and checking how public money is spent is exactly that. This is her field: she has experience in retail, so she has the background to judge those figures. That’s why it’s so good that STC now has councillors who bring a wide range of life skills to the table. If she feels something is off, I believe her.

SAME OLD LABOUR
It was a legitimate question, yet the Labour Chair went back to old-style politics: he shouted her down, and the problem got buried. No motion was tabled on the matter, so in the end it was buried perfectly.

If I had been at the table, I would have raised my hand and said: “I move that the stock-take reports be made available to councillors, and that a written report on them be brought to the next Full Council meeting.” But, I’m not a councillor, so…

I’LL DO MY TRADEMARK THING
I’ll be honest: my alarm bells went off immediately when Dale Smith started to shout. So I prepared an FOI request to get to the bottom of it, which goes in as soon as this article is published. We will look at those documents together. But that’s not all. Right after I complied a new FOI, I did something extra.

I went back to the cash books I obtained under FOI during my pellet investigation and picked two years: 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. These were the last two full years before the COVID pandemic, so they give a normal baseline; figures for later years are useless for comparison. I went through 62 pages of data for 2018/2019 and 59 pages for 2019/2020.

Even this quick review raised questions about the bar’s figures that deserve a separate, properly documented investigation. For today I prepared just few remarks and one chart.

2018/2019 WAS TYPICAL LABOUR-LED STC – NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING
The cash book records no separate Leisure Centre bar income at all in that financial year. Read that again: the council’s main day-to-day financial record shows NO SEPARATE INCOME FROM THE LEISURE CENTRE BAR! Zero. Null. Nada. Nic. Every week, the Leisure Centre banks one lump called “Leisure Centre Income”: gym, hall hire, bar and everything else together. Mix everything into one lump and nobody can see the bar on its own. A melting pot of incompetence.

The Village Hall records its bar takings event by event; the Leisure Centre doesn’t. Why? I don’t know. What I do know is that NOBODY reading these books, councillors included, can tell whether the LC bar made or lost money. That’s your Labour-run STC in one line: no one knows anything.

GIMME SOME FIGURES, OR GIVE ME DEATH!
The Leisure Centre placed orders that included bar stock worth about £13,500 in 2018/19 and £14,000 in 2019/20, with some of those orders also mixing in catering and vending items. None of it has a matching income line to check it against. In-sane! But don’t take my word for it. After my analysis, I fed the data to my favourite AI assistant and asked it to draw me some charts and give me honest feedback. Here it is:
“From this data we can’t say whether the Leisure Centre bar made money, lost money, or lost stock. Bar takings are buried in a weekly lump, some Booker orders mix bar stock with catering and vending, and department coding is unreliable. Any article claiming ‘the bar loses £X’ would be guesswork.“

CHARTS- FOOD FOR DATA NERDS LIKE ME
And here is chart showing relation between LC bar spending and income. Take it with hint of salt- its based on incomplete, unreliable data of STC in hey-day of Labour incompetence. Just notice this huge, 4000 pounds delivery right at the moment when world shut down…


OLD DATA VS NEW DATA
So the old data shows the bar’s money was recorded in a way nobody could check. I have no doubt about it: the mere fact of lumping bar income in with gym income should raise objections. However, we need new data to see whether the culture of unreliable reporting of LC income has changed. That’s why I’ve prepared an FOI request on this (text below the article).

I’m requesting the cash books for last financial year and this one, plus the stock-take data. These documents will allow me to track the bar’s takings and stock. My spidey senses are tingling. Add the Chair’s outburst to that, and you have a council that still doesn’t like questions about money. The recording alone speaks volumes, but… yes, there is a “but”, and it’s a big one. Here we arrive at the pièce de résistance of this article.

I’M ANGRY AT… DALE SMITH
Cllr Dale Smith handed me a perfect illustration of how Labour reacts when you start asking difficult questions about the LC. He reminded me of what I went through in STC. I watched it again and again, and it’s horrifying. It’s like a car crash you can’t look away from. He gave it to me on a silver platter. But then… Cllr Shelley Arapi contacted me and asked me not to publish the video.

Plenty of people in my position would have published it anyway. But I have too much respect for Cllr Arapi and her work to put her through unnecessary stress. I agreed to her request and promised her I would not publish the recording. I have kept a copy, which will be available if it is ever needed in any formal or legal proceedings.

BUT, IM ALSO ANGRY AT… MYSELF
I’ll be honest: I’m angry at myself. Very angry. This outburst brought back memories of my own time on STC, and residents deserve to see Labour’s true face. I had a smoking gun in my hands and agreed to put it away. I know, I’m shooting myself in the foot. But for me, a promise to a colleague who is doing the right thing is worth more than a viral clip.

Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com

Lead picture: made with Midjourney AI.

Subject: Freedom of Information request – cash books and Leisure Centre bar stock records

To: The Town Clerk / Proper Officer, Shirebrook Town Council

Dear Sir/Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request the following information held by Shirebrook Town Council.

1. Cash books
The Council’s cash book (all receipts and payments) for:
(a) the financial year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026; and
(b) 1 April 2026 to the last accepted to date of this request.

2. Leisure Centre bar – purchases and income
If bar purchases (restock) and bar income are not separately identifiable in the cash book, please provide any records held showing the monthly totals of Leisure Centre bar purchases and Leisure Centre bar income (for example, till or takings summaries) for the same periods as in part 1.

3. Stock-takes
Copies of all stock-take reports for the Leisure Centre bar carried out since 1 April 2023, including for each: the date, the stock valuation, and any recorded variance, shortfall or discrepancy.

4. Stock control procedure
Any written procedure, policy or guidance in force since 1 April 2023 governing stock control and stock-taking at the Leisure Centre bar.

5. Reporting of stock-takes
For each stock-take identified in part 3:
(a) whether its results were reported to full Council or to any committee and, if so, the date of the meeting and the relevant minute reference; and
(b) if not reported to members, the job title of the officer(s) who received the results.

Format
Under section 11 of the Act, I ask that the cash books and any other financial data be provided in their original electronic format (Excel or CSV), and additionally as PDF. Other documents may be provided as PDF.

I am happy for the names of staff to be redacted under section 40. If any part of this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, I ask that you provide advice and assistance under section 16 on how it could be narrowed, and supply the remaining parts without delay rather than refusing the request as a whole.

I look forward to your response within 20 working days.

Yours faithfully,

Sylwester Zwierzyński