Parliament has been in Recess this week for Easter. This means MPs have more time to spend in their constituencies and I have enjoyed being around Chelmsford.
I joined children and young people at Beaulieu Park School for one of the many Holiday Activity and Food programs that is being run over the holidays. I set up this national programme when I was Children’s Minister and it is great to see it going from strength to strength. Essex County Council have offered over 200 sessions, including 33 SEND sessions, to children and young people over the Easter period with nearly 42,000 spaces being taken up across the county. These are free to attend for those entitled to free school meals.
Many of the local providers are also offering good value “wrap around” hours so that children can start earlier and end later in the day. This means that working parents have access to affordable holiday childcare. Research shows that children who take part in enriching activities during the school holidays, particularly over the long summer break, tend to do better when the school term re-starts, so the scheme has educational benefits too.
At Beaulieu Park School sports, drama and arts sessions were being run for both primary and secondary pupils. I had a chance to have a good chat with many of those taking part. They came from a wide range of different schools and told me how much they were enjoying having interesting things to do during the holidays. The Spaghetti Bolognaise for lunch had also been a huge hit.
I also joined members of the Chelmsford Litter Wombles for a litter picking session near the Sainsburys in Springfield. This local organisation of volunteers has over 800 followers on its Facebook page. I was shocked to see how much litter had gathered behind the hedges in the Sainsbury’s car park and along the banks outside the BP garage nearby. We cleared 20 bags of litter between six of us in just a short period of time. Please do take your litter home if you can. I have also written to both Sainsbury’s, BP and Chelmsford City Council to ask them to put in some more bins.
During the week and over the Easter weekend, I had the change to spend time knocking on doors with some of those standing in the local elections on May 4th. These elections do matter as hard-working local councillors can make a huge difference.
One issue that has come up many times on the doorstep is the car parking charges at Hylands. Hylands was originally given to the people of Chelmsford for them to enjoy for free. In the past the income from functions paid for running the park so that people did not need to pay for parking. But for the past four years the Liberal Democrats have been running Chelmsford City Council and they decided to introduce the parking charges. Many families and dog walkers have told me that they are no longer using the park. If the Conservatives win the local elections they will reverse this, and ensure that Chelmsford residents to not need to pay to park at Hylands.
Chelmsford City Council are also responsible for allocating the funding that comes from housing developers to pay for local infrastructure developments. Under the Lib Dem leadership funding has gone to a variety of different projects and charities, but unfortunately none has gone to improving local NHS GP surgeries and the two GP projects that had been approved four years ago have stalled. With Chelmsford’s growing population I do think that helping our GPs to expand should be a priority.
Recess is also a time when MPs sometimes take a bit of time off, especially as the working week can be extremely long when Parliament is sitting. I enjoyed a calm few hours watching Essex play Middlesex in the opening match of the Cricket County Championship. Essex won the match and have had a great start to the season, currently topping the leader board!
