In my last Recorder column, I wrote about the enormous changes our country went through in September as we marked the arrival not just of a new Prime Minister in Liz Truss but a new monarch in King Charles III. Autumn has continued to be incredibly politically eventful with the resignation of Ms Truss and the start of Rishi Sunak’s premiership.
In his first PMQs, Rishi emphasised his commitment to delivering the promise of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, and I wanted to provide a progress update on some of the local pledges I made three years ago when I was re-elected to serve Hornchurch & Upminster.
Number one is the delivery of a new NHS hub in Hornchurch, building on the national pledge for more hospitals and health centres. The St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub will provide better GP, social care and other health services closer to people’s homes, taking pressure off Queen’s Hospital. I am thrilled to report that early site works began this week, and the project team aims to start services from the Suttons Lane site from March 2024. We hope to have a ground-breaking event for the community in the next month.
I pledged to get more police officers for our part of the capital. 3109 new officers have now been recruited to the Met as a whole, taking the number in our police unit up from 1210 in 2018 to 1560 now.
I said I would push for regional development to deliver local jobs and improve skills. I have been working with the Thames Freeport and Havering Council on securing investment into the borough, and in my last column wrote about the Jobs Fair I held at Queen’s Theatre a couple of months ago. Over 60 constituents have now secured either a job or training opportunity from that event, and September 2022 figures showed that the number of people in Hornchurch & Upminster claiming unemployment-related benefits has fallen by 865 over the last year.
On better transport, I have supported a new C2C bid to the Department for Transport to get step-free access to Platform 6 at Upminster station, and improvement works are beginning to Junction 28 of the M25 while progress is made on other road projects like Gallows Corner and the Lower Thames Crossing.
My team and I will keep working at Westminster and constituency level on these projects and more, and will endeavour to keep you all updated on our progress.
