I am very pleased to be able to invite so many senior politicians to Portsmouth. This shows the Government’s commitment to our city in moving it forward. I try very hard to make sure that these meetings are profitable for a group of people or organisation in the city. I also try to make sure that they are also interesting for the Ministers and show what a great city this is. This is a round up of some of the meetings we have had over the last few months.
Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education came down last year and I arranged for him to meet the staff at Arundel Court School and some of the primary heads of the city. This was a productive meeting as we showed him the building issues at Arundel Court and the primary heads were able to spend time talking about the issues in primary education at the moment. They were very impressed that he listened and had a good grasp of what they were talking about. I am hoping that Arundel Court School is successful soon in getting some money for rebuilding which is desperately needed and I will be writing to Mr Gove asking him to prioritise this in the latest round of bids.
I asked Sir George Young to come and publicise the fact that we need more volunteers advisers for the Citizens Advice Bureau, which I am a trustee of. The News very kindly covered the visit and some people have come forward as potential advisers – we still need more though so do contact the CAB if you are interested.
In June, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, was able to spend an hour over tea with some of our hard working PSCO’s and Community Wardens to hear what it is like on the ground and about their hard work. I have been round the city with a Community Warden and chatted to many PSCO’s and never fail to be impressed by their knowledge of the issues and troubled individuals in the city. I wanted to make sure that this was recognised by the Home Secretary.
The Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond, came with me to visit Boathouse 4, which is a charity that is going to provide a college that will train young unemployed people and apprentices in traditional skills of boatbuilding and engineering in collaboration with Highbury College and the University of Southampton. Obviously these skills will be transferrable to other areas such as construction and over 320 young people will pass through the doors of the college over the next 5 years. We also had the opportunity to discuss with Mr Hammond some of the other buildings in the Historic Dockyard and the potential use of them. This was a very useful discussion and I hope to report some good news soon.
The most recent visit was by the Planning Minister, Nick Boles. Poor Nick got stuck on the Eastern Road for an hour because of an accident but he was very helpful to the South Parade Pier Trust with some good ideas. I will be working with them to move some of the ideas forward as we must try and make sure that the Pier survives if the new owners are not willing to restore it quickly. I am full of admiration for local people who put hours of time into a project such as the Trust when there is no definite knowledge that they can own it and turn it round. At least, there is pressure on the new owners to make it good quickly. We also visited the Camber so that Nick could see the plans for Ben Ainslie Racing and he was very impressed with the planning department’s work in getting this project off the ground in a short space of time.
I will continue to work with local organisations that need a boost or would like to lobby a minister so let me know if you are interested. If I am elected next year, I will able to be a much stronger voice for Portsmouth and Southsea alongside Penny Mordaunt and Cllr Donna Jones to make sure that we get the investment and help that we need.