No time for a summer break in my constituency (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

No time for a summer break in my constituency

9:00am Sunday 7th August 2011 in News

MPs have been on Parliamentary recess this week, which means that instead of going to London on Sunday evening, I went to the BBC’s Bath studio to join Mark D’Arcy ‘down the line’ for BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour to discuss the economy, the massacre in Norway and the fall-out from the phone hacking scandal.

After a busy constituency surgery in Melksham Town Hall that Saturday, I began the first full week of recess with another surgery in Neston Memorial Hall.

Over the coming weeks, I will be visiting businesses and community organisations and hosting my regular surgeries – all made more practical by not leaving for London each week.

On Tuesday, I joined residents for the Bradford on Avon Town Council meeting in St Margaret’s Hall in which consultation feedback from residents to proposals for a new bridge were discussed further.

I later welcomed the chance to speak about national changes to planning law.

Business leaders and I had our breath taken away listening to the inspirational Talan Skeels-Piggins at the Monahans’ Business Breakfast at Chippenham Sports Club on Wednesday.

A former PE teacher at St Laurence School in Bradford on Avon, sit-skier and wheelchair user since 2003, Talan has set up the Bike Experience charity, www.thebikeexperience.co.uk, to help disabled motorcyclists back on their bike – off road at Castle Combe circuit.

I later made a return visit to Chippenham’s Invensys Rail who’ve recently secured a major Thameslink signalling contract and been named Network Rail’s supplier of the year.

Before the week was out I was taking on more cases at another surgery in Corsham Pound Arts Centre, in which issues including tax credits, the benefit cap and policing were raised.

Since the publication of Wiltshire Council’s Draft Core Strategy for planning, I have been contacted by many people concerned about plans for development, particularly in the Chippenham area.

You can give the council your views on the plans until Monday, August 8 and I encourage all of you to make your voices heard. The Draft Core Strategy and instructions on how to respond to it are available at: www.wiltshire.gov.uk/ ldfconsult.

My next constituency surgeries will be tomorrow (Saturday) between 9.30am–11am at Avonbridge House, Bath Road, Chippenham and on Wednesday between 9.30am–11am in Bradford on Avon Library.