The Romsey Advertiser 15 February 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 15th Feb 2008

As it is recess week I have been 100 per cent constituency focussed. In many ways the week started with an early return from Westminster last Thursday so that I could attend a meeting in Andover about the Tesco megashed application. Until attending the meeting I had not fully understood the vast scale of the application and now have a much greater understanding of why people living in villages in the north of the constituency are concerned that there will be more large lorries passing through their villages.

The bulk of Friday was spent on a ten hour shift with the ambulance service. I quite like it when I can spend a longer amount of time on one subject as it helps me explore it in greater depth. It was a fascinating insight into a very important job and I came away with a number of points to follow through on.

The weekend was relatively quiet apart from my surgery and celebrating the Chinese New Year in Southampton. This enabled me to spend a little time preparing for Monday when I accompanied a constituent to a family court hearing as a McKenzie friend. I am not usually in a position to provide any help or support in this way because of diary constraints but it gave me a unique insight into a very secretive and much maligned process.

After a day in court what better than to spend an evening with the retained fire fighters in Stockbridge? I also spent time with the Romsey fire fighters on Tuesday evening and witnessed a very interesting drill exercise in which they demonstrated how to extract an injured passenger from a wrecked car.

.There have also been a number of school visits this week which have been very stimulating. In most cases I have ended up answering questions posed by 10 and 11 year olds. I love children of this age as they are always engaging and challenging in a very positive way.

Over the past month I have met with a large number of public sector workers and I probably have not had such an intense meeting programme since I was first elected. The differences are very interesting as 7-8 years ago I was almost invariably met with grumbles about the constant change. There are still issues and minor gripes but on the whole people have relatively little to complain about. There are some gripes about resources but you only have to look around to see a lot of new equipment and a sense of professionals once again being allowed to do their jobs. Long may it continue.

Published with kind permission of the Romsey Advertiser