I grew up in Brighton and my parents grew up in Peacehaven, so its an enormous honour to be the new MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven. I say new, but it’s been five months already since the election and a lot has happened in that time.
In this column I’ll be updating you each week on the big issues in Westminster and our local community, and the campaigns and issues that I’m working on. If there’s anything you’d like to raise with me, please email chris.ward.mp@parliament.uk. Our new constituency office is also now open in St George’s Road, Kemptown.
Rebuilding our NHS
Along with the housing crisis, our NHS is probably the issue that constituents raise with me most often. The story’s often the same – our NHS staff (many of whom work at the Royal Sussex in my constituency) do amazing, lifesaving work day in and day out, but the system simply isn’t working. The Darzi report, published a few months ago, shows the huge challenges the NHS faces across the country – and we know that’s the experience for too many across Sussex too. This week, I met with the Minister of State for Health, Karin Smyth MP, at the Department of Health and with the chairman of the Sussex NHS Trust, Adam Doyle to discuss this. I pushed both on the need for major improvements in our local NHS, including maternity services, a new A&E and cancer centre in Brighton, more GP services in Peacehaven and Saltdean, and the wider lack of mental health services. That’s a big list, but radical reform is now needed. I was reassured by the minister and the trust that they do have plans in place to deliver improvements – but this will take time and I’ll hold their feet to the fire over the months and years to come.
The i360 fiasco
Brighton’s an amazing place, and we all want to see the city and our seafront succeed. It’s with real sadness that we saw the i360 enter administration last week. My thoughts are with those whose jobs and livelihoods are affected, and the impact this could have the city’s long-term finances. Searching questions have to be asked about why the city has been saddled with £51m of debt and why so much taxpayers’ money was put behind this venture – money that could have been better spent on housing, schools or tackling homelessness. This week I’ve spoken with Brighton and Hove City Council about next steps and how we can safeguard as many jobs and as much taxpayer’s money going forward.
The need for safer streets
A couple of weeks ago, my constituency team and I spoke to shopworkers up and down St. James’ Street, in the beating heart of Kemp Town. This is a unique and special place in the city but I’ve been worried about the rising reports of anti-social behaviour I’m seeing. Of the first ten shops workers we spoke to, nine said they had suffered attacks at work and all ten said that shoplifting was now a daily occurrence. This can’t go on. Everyone has a right to be safe at work and on our streets. I raised this with the policing minister last week in the House of Commons and I’m also pressing the Police and Crime Commissioner to take decisive action. This of course means more police on the streets, but I’d also like to see better use of CCTV and targeted offender to rehab programmes so that we also target the causes of spiralling retail crime.
Tackling Travel chaos at the Amex
When I agreed this column with the Argus, I promised I wouldn’t turn it into a weekly update on my views about Brighton and Hove Albion! So in that spirit, I won’t linger on the disappointment of the Southampton game last week other than to highlight once again the difficulties many of us faced getting a train back from the ground. Around 40 per cent of Albion match-goers use the train and having endured these travel problems on midweek games for years, I’ve been working with Lord Steve Bassam to try and find a way to make this most unpleasant part of the Amex matchday experience more bearable.
We’ve raised this in Parliament and this week I spoke with Govia Thameslink, who run matchday train services to and from the ground. We made clear that this is a massive problem for Albion fans – and (fingers crossed!) that the prospect of European football again makes it more and more likely that the Amex will be hosting big midweek games more regularly in the years to come.
I’m pleased that from December 15 Govia have committed to increase the number of trains running before and after midweek games. Govia will add an extra train per hour in both directions from Falmer on matchdays and extra carriages, increasing capacity by around 1,000 in both directions and boosting services by around a sixth. This will help ease crowding at the station before and after games. But I know, of course, that much more is going to be needed to iron out travel problems in the long-term – including looking at extending Falmer station and upgrading rail infrastructure. I’ll keep you updated on this (and the Albion’s form) in weeks to come.
As ever, do stay in touch and all best,
Chris Ward MP
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