Julia Lopez MP's column for the November 2019 issue of the Hornchurch Vision magazine:
Over the summer Julia was thrilled to announce the Government’s £17m investment in the new health and wellbeing hub on the St. George’s hospital site and last month, the Government announced a further £2.8b for the building of 6 new hospitals, including a rebuild at Whipps Cross Hospital. Whilst not within the constituency, this rebuild will help reduce the pressure felt by North-East London Hospitals and our local Queen’s Hospital. As we look forward to these future health centres, it is important that we ensure our existing services are operating well and are responsive to constituents’ experiences and Havering Healthwatch perform a vital service in supporting this. We were pleased to attend the launch of their Friends Network last week and encourage constituents to share their experiences, positive or otherwise, with Havering Healthwatch so that they may be relayed to service providers.
It is a passion of ours to engage with the young people in the constituency and to encourage them to get involved in politics and know that their voice matters. We are therefore, very excited to be launching our new Primary Schools Debating Competition and our Secondary Schools Essay Writing Competition. We have written to all schools in the constituency to gauge the level of interest in participating and are thrilled to have had a number of positive responses. It is our aim to bring Westminster closer to the constituency and to familiarise young people with the workings of democracy. We will be holding a grand final in the glorious surroundings of Westminster for our debating teams and for the winner of the essay writing competition there will be a week’s internship in our Westminster office.
In other news, we had a very productive meeting with TfL in Westminster and impressed upon them our determination to see the improvements at Gallows Corner realised. We also attended The Thames Estuary Growth Day aimed at encouraging stakeholders to work collaboratively to deliver vital infrastructure, homes and jobs to achieve the growth and exciting potential of the Thames Estuary.
