Bit worrying to see headlines about my Sompting public meeting being ‘hijacked’ and ‘crashed’ last week. In fact it did exactly what it said on the tin. It was billed as the first of a series of ‘Talk to Tim’ constituency meetings for me to give my take on current issues such as the upcoming EU referendum and constituents to raise any national or local issues with me.
After a spirited discussion on the EU a number of local residents wanted to discuss their concerns over the proposals for a new 3G pitch at the Sir Robert Woodard Academy site for community use. An application has just been submitted to Adur Planning Department and clearly it could have been handled better so I offered to find out exactly where it was at and help them lodge their objections to see if changes could be made. That is exactly the point of such meetings and I am always happy to help where I can so I hope constituents will not be deterred from coming along in future. I will be announcing dates of the next ‘Talk to Tim’ meetings elsewhere in the constituency soon, probably when we know what the Prime Minister’s current negotiations over the EU have produced.
With other West Sussex MPs, I have ben receiving a lot of identical emails from schools supporting the ‘Worthless’ campaign to get a better funding deal for local pupils compared to other parts of the country. Odd that, because we strongly support the campaign but long before it was set up we were lobbying Education ministers and the Chancellor to scrap the unfair formula set up by the last Labour Government. We succeeded in persuading George Osborne to replace the old system and consult on a new one which can only be better for local schools and we want it as soon as possible.
Whilst I always welcome hearing from constituents sending hundreds of identical template emails to MPs who are already onside is probably not the best use of parents’ time or indeed ours – it is not us who need to be persuaded. It is a shame that teachers did not liaise with us first so we could target everyone’s campaigning energy to best effect, but we will make the best we can of it.