Water Safety Education
Julia Buckley Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important debate. Shrewsbury is famous for being looped by the beautiful River Severn. It is a source of beauty, nature, tourism and livelihoods for my town, but also, unfortunately, the scene of 14 deaths in the last 10 years. Overwhelmingly, those deaths occurred at the weekends or in the evenings, by men, sometimes after a night out or because of mental ill health, and sometimes because of those two factors combined.
In April 2022 there were two river deaths in quick succession: Toby Jones and Nathan Fleetwood. Those deaths brought the town together, to say that we had had too many such deaths and that we needed to look at the issue as a community to see what could be done. Our local stakeholders and councils came together and launched a water safety campaign. They set up the new Water Safety Action Group, funded by West Mercia Police. We set up safer route signage along the river; got funding for increased solar lighting and rescue throw lines; set up free online water safety courses for schools, colleges and clubs; and we had a poster campaign in pubs and clubs.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser) will be delighted to hear that we created videos, to be broadcast in pubs and put out on social media, that told the story of what could go wrong. We also educated bar staff about not overselling alcohol, when too much is too much, and we trained them in mental health response, working with our street pastors. We had free training from the RNLI on waterside response schemes, helping our local businesses. We got funding for CCTV, and we set up the Shrewsbury rangers scheme and taxi marshals to help people to get home safely late in the evening. I am really proud of my town—of how we took this issue on and said, “We don’t want this to happen in Shrewsbury.” I am proud to the House that the number of deaths has reduced slightly.
I pay tribute to our local stakeholders, who responded so quickly and thoroughly to what we considered to be an emergency, and supported our local community. I thank Shropshire council, Shrewsbury town council, our business improvement district, West Mercia police for its funding and support, our street pastors, the fire and rescue service and our local residents’ “Make Our River Safer” Facebook group. Together, as communities, we can help to move the dial.
Educational Opportunities in Semi-rural Areas
Julia Buckley Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this vital debate.
My concern for Shrewsbury also focuses on educational opportunities for 16 to 18-year-olds, in terms of both funding and geographical access. My local provider map will probably mirror that of many other semi-rural areas: the constituency serves the whole county of 19 market towns, and in recent years there has been a domino effect as smaller schools have closed down their sixth forms, leading to a centralisation in the county. As a result, Shrewsbury Colleges Group now supports more than 10,000 students. It is the sixth largest college in the country, offers a wide range of courses, and was recently graded as “outstanding” by Ofsted.
However, the situation presents geographic barriers to those aged 16 and 17 who live across the county in those smaller villages, due to the lack—as we have heard—of public transport. In Shropshire we have limited train stations and we have lost more than 5,000 bus routes in the past 12 years, leaving many young people excluded from opportunities. One example was a hairdresser I met in the village of Broseley. I asked her why she became a hairdresser; she said that she had really wanted to do an apprenticeship in engineering, but there were no buses, and this was the only apprenticeship she could walk to. There is poverty of opportunity, as young people reduce their aspirations to match their transport options.
That is depressing enough, but even where there is a bus between towns, the average annual ticket costs £750. It is known locally as the “A-level tax”, and for many families it is completely unaffordable. However, many rural colleges do not receive additional funding to help with the bursaries they offer. Colleges such as Shrewsbury combine both A-levels and FE courses, yet they fall between the two stools when it comes to funding. I urge the Minister to review the anomaly whereby sixth forms and FE colleges receive funding, but where the two are combined, as they often are in rural areas, they miss out on crucial funding.
