I recently celebrated English Tourism Week with a visit to Lacock Abbey and a tour of its new tea rooms and the fantastic homemade cakes it has on offer.

Plans are underway to expand the stunning gardens and provide suitable parking to enable even more people to enjoy the history of the building, it inhabitants and their impact, not just on Wiltshire, but on the whole UK.

With the sun shining it really showed that some of the most beautiful places to visit in the UK can be found here in Wiltshire and I would encourage anyone to go and celebrate the fantastic buildings and gardens here in Wiltshire and across the whole UK so we never take for granted what we have on our doorstep.

I was invited to speak to the Rotary Club of Bradford on Avon to discuss the issue of international aid and it was a pleasure to speak and answer questions on this and many other topics.

With Rotarians celebrating 113 years of fundraising and helping others and now operating in more than 200 countries and territories it was a great honour to celebrate this with them and hear some of the fantastic work which the organisation is doing to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

With education being a particular passion of mine I was delighted to hear of the work the Rotary Club is doing to improve literacy rates both in the UK and across the developing world. Education is critical to social mobility and I am proud that the focus for UK aid in 2018 is education which will make a significant difference to millions of children across the world.

With Parliament in recess over the Easter break I have been able to conduct daily open surgeries across the constituency to meet as many people as possible and hear some of the concerns and the fantastic ideas for improvements which people shared with me.

Particularly enjoyable was the event held in Broughton Gifford with the village hall providing the perfect venue and a real community asset which we will certainly be using again.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with a group from Climate Friendly Bradford on Avon who raised some significant environmental concerns and we were also able to talk through some of the fantastic Government initiatives recently launched to cut down on plastic waste.

I have future dates planned for surgeries in Hilperton, Winsley, Bowerhill and Shaw so please do get in touch with the office on 01249 704465 if you would like further details.