General matters

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

My local community has lost two friends in the past couple of weeks. First there was the very sad passing last week of Councillor Brenda Simpson, who was an outstanding member of Swale borough council for 23 years. Brenda was a perfect ward councillor who, despite being a staunch Conservative, always put the interests of her Kemsley community before party politics. She was honest, hard-working and a thoroughly nice person, and she will be missed by friend and political foe alike.

This month we also witnessed the death of the East Kent Gazette, which closed its doors after 156 years of publication. My heart goes out to the hard-working staff who face the prospect of losing their jobs.

This year we also witnessed the closure of Sittingbourne magistrates court, which was killed off by the Ministry of Justice despite a promise made to local people that it would remain open when Sheerness magistrates court was closed a few years ago. I am convinced that the closure will lead to some of my constituents being denied the access to justice to which they are entitled.

Sadly, there are more closures in the pipeline. For instance, we are fighting to keep open Queenborough fire station, which Kent fire and rescue service wants to close on the grounds that the number of houses in the area does not warrant a fire station. That ignores the fact that there are plans to build another 2,500 homes in Queenborough in the foreseeable future.

We are also fighting to save the Sheerness county youth club, which is under threat from Kent county council despite being acknowledged as one of the best youth clubs in the county.

We have a number of other challenges, too. For instance, our local road infrastructure needs upgrading if we are to prevent the centre of Sittingbourne from becoming gridlocked in the not-too-distant future. For a start, we need urgent action to ease congestion on the A2 and on the A249 at the Stockbury roundabout, which is a nightmare during rush hour. In addition, we want to see a commitment to complete the final stretch of the northern relief road in Sittingbourne and agreement in principle for a southern relief road.

Last week we learned that there are now almost 3,000 people unemployed in my constituency, an increase of 200 on the last quarter. But despite that increase I am quite upbeat about the future prospects for employment in my constituency. Recently Swale borough council approved planning applications for two new Morrisons supermarkets in the area, one in Sittingbourne and one in Sheppey. Tesco has also received planning approval for a major regeneration of Sittingbourne town centre. Those developments alone will create up to 1,500 very welcome jobs. Of course, because of their size, there might be a temptation for the Government to call in one or more of those planning applications. I would urge Ministers to resist that temptation so that those jobs can be delivered without delay.

In Sittingbourne and Sheppey we are lucky to have some excellent schools, including six secondary schools, all of which have either achieved academy status or are hoping to become academies. But a number of those schools are in urgent need of capital investment. I understand why the Government scrapped the ill-thought-out and badly managed Building Schools for the Future programme, but I very much hope that money will be made available to the schools in my constituency who desperately need to upgrade their buildings in order to maintain the excellent standards that they currently achieve.

Finally, there is one other bit of good news for my constituency, and it is literally good news! The Kent Messenger Group has stepped into the breach caused by the closure of the East Kent Gazette and last week launched a new paid-for paper in my constituency. It is called the Sittingbourne News Extra, and judging by its first edition, it promises to provide Sittingbourne and its surrounding villages with the local news to which they have become accustomed. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the editor and staff of the Sittingbourne News Extra on the quality of their paper and welcome them to our local community.

There is so much more that I could say about my constituency, of which I am very proud, but sadly time does not allow me to do anything other than wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and other right hon. and hon. Members, a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful new year.