A normal week involves a lot of travel to and from London. But with Parliament now in recess I’ve been travelling a lot here in Burnley and Padiham instead, with the return of my annual summer surgery tour.
In my view too many politicians expect people to come to them, whether it’s to raise an issue or just to share views. But that’s never been my approach. For me, getting as close as I can to where is convenient for residents is paramount. It’s why I do the summer surgery tour, and why most of my surgeries throughout the year are at supermarkets. And that’s what these next few weeks are all about.
They help me gauge views, share opinions, discuss hot topics, and – most importantly – see what I can do to help with issues that are affecting our friends and neighbours.
This last week I’ve been holding surgeries in our wonderful parks – which have all just been confirmed as retaining their ‘Green Flag’ status – meaning they are amongst the best in the country! And that’s only possible because of the hard work that goes in to maintaining them by the Friends groups, and maintenance teams.
With 5 surgeries down, there’s still many more to go. And once done, it means I’ll have held one of my open surgeries within 1 mile of almost every resident’s home. They span inside and outside, daytime and evening, weekday and weekend. So I hope there’s something for everyone who wants to catch me.
If you’d like to speak with me at one of these, I advertise them all in advance on my website and social media, and you can see the full list by going to www.antonyhig.co.uk/events. And if none of them are convenient, drop me an email and I can offer one of the appointment based surgeries I hold too.
I’ve also been speaking with our business community, by taking part in the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce’s Chamber Assembly. Like surgeries for residents, this is an important and helpful way for me to hear what views are, and what I can do to help.
Finally, recess is also an opportunity to catch up with the letters, emails and calls that I’ve been receiving. This month alone almost 300 new issues have been raised with me, from requests to help, to questions on policy. And working with my team I’ve managed to resolve many of these already, with more still to be done on a few.
See you in the coming days!
