06/04/2010 by Steve Barclay.

After a long wait we now have the chance to put an end to Labour’s mismanagement.  Five more years of Gordon Brown would be a disaster, and the feedback on the doorstep this morning has been fantastic.  There is a clear desire for change.

We launched our campaign in Manea before heading over to Benwick this afternoon.  A really good response and a positive note on which to start the campaign.

Thanks to Sabrina from Sabs Photography in Manea who joined us today and took some photos out on the campaign. 

Posted in General Election, Manea, Conservative Party | No Comments »

19/11/2009 by Steve Barclay.

£50 million for Network Rail announced today to spend on rail stations.  So how much will our share be?  Zero.  Ten stations have been earmarked for improvement, and nine of the ten are in Labour constituencies.  We don’t even get a share of the £3.25 billion planned to be spent over the next five years.

What about the money for new Colleges?  Earlier in the year we saw funding for further education colleges cut with just 13 getting the go ahead.  All 13 were in Labour constituencies.  Our new College was scrapped, one month before building was due to start.

Is it any better on road transport?  £1.5 million has just been announced today to be spent improving road safety - a major issue locally.  But this is money for roads overseas.  Fenland Road Safety Campaign earlier this month submitted their petition to No 10 for funding for the Fen roads adjacent to waterways, but we were told no money was available.

Network Rail has £3.25 billion to improve 2,000 stations over the next 5 years, but none of these are in North East Cambridgeshire.  Funding will improve Peterborough (so Labour ministers heading to their heartlands in the North East can have a smooth journey) and also in Cambridge (the south of the county again given priority) but none of our stations are included.  There are no plans for example to extend the platforms at Whittlesey and Manea, or to link up Wisbech.  Yet the Government wants more houses built here.

Taxpayers locally keep being short changed.  Safety on local roads matters.  Anything that reduces the loss of life from road traffic accidents is to be welcome in whatever country it is, but action overseas does not mean that no action at home is acceptable.  Likewise a good train service from Cambridge & Peterborough is great news for our commuters to London -but they have to get to Cambridge or Peterborough in the first place.   And scrapping our College will not help them have a job to go to in the first place.

Posted in Fenland Road Safety, Labour Failure, Manea, Whittlesey | No Comments »

26/10/2009 by Steve Barclay.

Out and about in March and Manea this week-end.  Give the after dinner speech at our March branch Harvest Supper on Friday evening, followed on Saturday by one of my regular coffee meetings held in Manea, and then pop over to March Rugby Club on Sunday morning to watch March Under 17s play a local derby match against Thorney.

The Harvest Supper was held against the backdrop of yet more worrying economic news.  It is now the longest and deepest recession since records began with the sixth quarter of decline.  Despite Labour spending like there is no tomorrow, printing money, and cutting VAT, the economy has still fallen again.  France and Germany are now out of recession - so much for Gordon Brown‘s ridiculous claims that the UK was best placed to weather the storm.  The drastic fall in sterling shows how false his claims are.

The coffee cluster in Manea highlights a range of issues.  It is frustrating that whilst the local GP made a saving of £36,000 last year he only received £8,000 of this to spend in the village.  The rest of the money disappeared once again into the PCT central pot - to be spent in the more affluent areas of South Cambridgeshire.  When are we locally going to get a fair share of health spending? 

Fenland has the highest number of teenage pregnancies, diabetics - especially in March, and heart disease in the County, yet we still receive less funding per head than South Cambridgeshire.  It is typical of the top down command approach of Labour that when savings are made locally we are not rewarded by keeping this money.  Last year of 42 dieticians in the County, only 3 of them were in Fenland and East Cambridgeshire.  Such figures highlight the poor deal residents here receive.  The PCT needs to move much quicker to address health imbalances between the North and South of the county.

Posted in March, Manea | No Comments »

12/03/2008 by Steve Barclay.

A full day started with a visit to look at new affordable housing built in Wisbech.  It is a huge challenge for many people to get their first foot on the housing ladder, and I am keen to find out what can be done locally to help.  The first impression was not made by the housing though but by the cold.

It was absolutely freezing! I joined our hosts Pauline Ford (Managing Director of Roddens Housing Association) and Jerry Harkness (Development Programme Director) but after a quick tour of the site we agreed unanimously to beat a retreat inside.  This did give us chance to see the high standard of the recently completed homes and discuss the challenges to providing more affordable housing.  Then it was off to the Nene Development to get an update on the latest progress there.

Next on the agenda was a visit to the Oasis Community Centre in Wisbech to see their wide range of community programmes.  These range from helping build people’s confidence in the use of IT to providing a good lunch for the elderly. We also popped in for a chat with members of Fenland Links. The staff at the Oasis have created a wonderfully warm atmosphere and there was a really positive feel throughout.

In the afternoon I had an invitation to join our association branch in Manea for afternoon tea. I expected a few biscuits - instead it was a feast!  The cake was too good to miss and I could have settled in for the whole afternoon.  Instead I had a meeting in Whittlesey with Malcolm Moss MP and Mayor Cllr Pam Potts, so after discussing issues in Manea it was off to meet a number of Whittlesey businesses to discuss how we can support local shopping against the challenge from Peterborough.

An interesting and full day - and great to have the chance to learn from Malcolm’s experience as MP.

Posted in Manea, Whittlesey, Wisbech | No Comments »