Mail Weekly Column: 21 August 2023
Last week I embarked on my summer surgery tour, with me and my casework team heading out across Furness from Monday to Friday to chat with people and hold surgeries in every ward in the constituency.
This is one of my favourite weeks in the year - not only do we get to be out and about, but we also get to have hundreds of conversations with people about their lives, the issues they’re facing, and do our best to help.
We started on Monday in High Furness, moving from Seathwaite to Broughton, and then Kirkby to Askam. As well as individual and confidential pieces of casework, people asked for help with mobile coverage, potholes, child support, and with the resilience of the electricity network in rural areas.
On Tuesday we started at Rampside Village Hall and were utterly inundated, before going on to Roose Cons, Flours Cafe at Gleaston, the Miners Arms at Swarthmoor, and then Greenodd Village Hall. There were lots of issues to cover here, but perhaps the most pressing was the uncertainty over the future of the GP practice at Haverthwaite. This well-respected surgery is at risk of closure and although it is outside of my constituency and into my neighbour Tim Farron’s patch, I’ve reached out to him to see how we can best work together - especially given that a number of the patients live within Furness’ borders. We managed to save Askam practice a few years back thanks to community support, so I look forward to taking those lessons and applying them here.
Wednesday started at CandoFM, being interviewed by some of the fantastic children taking part in their Summer Activity Club, before holding surgeries at Barrow Market, St Mark’s Church, Ormsgill Community Centre, Spring Mount on Walney, and also South End Caravan Park. So many issues came up, from people’s challenges with benefits, to TV licensing and local radio, all the way through to the law that I passed earlier this year to end Friday releases for vulnerable prisoners to cut re-offending.
Thursday took us to Ulverston Market, the Farmers’ at Baycliff, Buccleuch Hall at Lindal, and the Dalton Community Church in, you guessed it, Dalton. Again, the issues raised here were so diverse - lots of potholes, but also quite a few people raising complex casework, and also important issues like how to move Westmorland & Furness Council to achieve Fairtrade status.
Our final day took us to Barrow Island, Salthouse Pavilion, Hawcoat Community Centre, Tesco Extra and then ending at Barrow Park Bandstand. As you might imagine, in a town of almost 60,000 people you get an incredible volume and variety of issues, from concerns over policing, county lines, to questions on net zero, shock collars, and also loft insulation.
We saw well over 150 people over the 5 days of our tour and now my fantastic team and I will start the hard work of actioning all that casework and getting people answers, and trying to help those who need assistance. This is an amazing job, and this week is one of my favourite parts of it. I must thank everyone who hosted us, came along to say hello, offered us tea, and came over to ask for help. And also thank my team, who put in all the hard yards to make it all happen. Thank you.
