Hello everyone,
There’s been a lot happening locally over the past couple of weeks and I’ve been busy meeting up with lots of schools, the police and local charities. In Parliament, I have been doing a lot of work in my role in the Shadow Treasury team pressing the Chancellor to drop the massive tax hikes in road tax that are planned. Read on, for a brief local update.
Working with our local police
I regularly see our local Putney Inspector Kevan Martin to discuss crime issues and feedback concerns that other local residents have raised with me. It is very helpful to get a chance to talk face to face with Inspector Martin and also to hear from him about how I can help as a local MP. I also meet with our Safer Neighbourhood Sergeants where there are specific areas we need to talk about. I’ve also been to the latest Wandsworth Police Commendation Ceremony at the Wandsworth Civic Suite. There were around 25 awards to officers from across the borough and it was a privilege for me to be there. Some of the stories of bravery really bring it home to you how dangerous the job of our local police can be. When knife crime is such an issue on our streets, its often our police who deal with it head on. If you are a victim of crime or are concerned about crime, please do always contact the local police. If for whatever reason you can’t, then you can always email me at greeningj@parliament.uk and I often collate residents concerns and pass them on to our police as overall community feedback which they can still use in tackling crime.
Meeting up with local schools
I’ve seen a lot of local primary schools in the past couple of weeks. Aside from judging the fancy dress competition at the brilliant St Michael’s Summer Fete in Southfields, I went to Granard Primary School to support their Volunteer Reading Help programme. Volunteers go into the school to help children improve their reading by reading one to one with them. The children I met said it really helped and they very much enjoyed the one to one support. The volunteers go in twice a week for about an hour to help out. If you are interested in getting involved, with a primary school near you, then you can contact VRH through its website, http://www.vrh.org.uk.I also visited Heathmere Primary School in Roehampton to meet the headteacher and children, and I hope that that I’ll be able to have some of the children over to visit Parliament in September. St Mary’s Church of England Primary School visited Parliament this week and I hope they had a really great visit.
Roehampton Regeneration
The Roehampton Jobs Fair we had recently in Whitelands College at Roehampton University, went very well indeed and had a great attendance from local residents and also employers. After all the effort that had gone into organising it, it was exciting to finally see it happen, and hopefully some of the attendees will have been able to either get work or take steps towards getting back into work.This week, I also met with TfL and Wandsworth Borough Council to discuss better bus links from Roehampton to Barnes Station, Putney and Wandsworth. There are some options to better link up the Lennox estate and Priory Lane area to Barnes Station and Roehampton and I’m very keen to see TfL progress those plans seriously – hopefully I got that across in our meeting!The Queen Mary’s Hospital summer fair, the weekend before last, in Roehampton was also fantastic and the weather stayed fine. Lots of local people came along and I really enjoyed seeing everyone out in the sun, raising money for a great cause.
Out and About
I’ve also met with our local Cancer Research Shop, and been at the Sutherland Grove Residents AGM, not to mention meeting up with Richmond Park managers, the Royal Parks Agency.
If you need my help as an MP, give me a call on 0208 944 0378 to come along to my weekly MP surgery, email me on greeningj@parliament.uk or write to me at the House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA. I’ll do my best to help.
Best wishes
Justine Greening MP
June 20, 2008