Constituents are fed up with local officers being sent from Havering to police Central London political protests. It is an issue I have raised once again with the Met Commissioner as it exacerbates the fundamental problem we have - the Mayor of London has not allocated enough officers to Havering for the borough’s size.
We have good local police with whom I engage regularly, and I am pleased that we have seen this month new officers going to St Andrews, Elm Park, Upminster, Cranham and Hacton. There has also been progress on the crime crackdown in Harold Hill. Another custodial sentence has been given to a persistent burglar and shoplifter, and the Home Secretary has announced a new offence of assaulting shop workers while police will be supported with facial recognition technology to help them catch suspects. This will all help in the fight to wrestle back our streets for decent, law-abiding people.
Pot holes are a major bugbear of drivers and cyclists alike, so I was glad when we secured over £10 million for Havering from reallocated HS2 money in December. This cash now goes straight to the borough after I argued for it to bypass the Mayor. This month, we have learned that that funding has already enabled 348 extra road repairs in the constituency. To help improve the safety as well as the condition of our highways, I am also working with staff at the Meadowbanks Care Home in Upminster to highlight road safety issues they are experiencing.
Readers may have seen in the Recorder my campaign for a local Banking Hub following Barclays planned closure of their Hornchurch branch next month. A Hub provides access to face-to-face services from all major high street banks on rotating days. To support my application, I want to know how businesses and residents have been affected by local bank closures. I hope readers can help by completing the survey on my website. I have now extended the survey to include postal services after a recent survey found that only 65.6% of first class letters in Hornchurch & Upminster were delivered in time - 35% below Ofcom’s target of 93%.
On health, things are marching on with the construction of the new St George's NHS Hub on Station Road in Hornchurch - my priority campaign since I was first elected in 2017. Health Minister, Andrew Stephenson has written to let me know that staff levels at Queen’s and King George’s hospitals have been bolstered by 54 more full-time equivalent doctors. GPs in the constituency are supported with 29 more patient care staff, helping them to provide thousands more appointments than in December 2022.
