Page 68 - Phonebox Magazine April 2010

Out and About with Mark Lancaster
Our local MP
WITH AN ELECTION nearly upon us, for this Parliament at least this is likely to be my last column in The Phonebox and I simply wanted to say what an honour it has been to serve as your MP for these last five years. I have tried to ensure that Milton Keynes and North Bucks has been firmly put on the political map in Westminster. I am a strong believer that MPs should never forget why they are elected; to represent their constituents. Personally it has been a busy and hopefully successful five years, especially the ‘I before E’ or ‘Infrastructure before Expansion’ campaign which has helped change the way the city is being developed and changing Government plans on regional housing targets which has been such a relief to us all here in the rural community. It has also been particularly rewarding to be able to successfully support the Open University in their ‘discussions’ with Government and even, if rather unexpectedly, last year managing to reverse the spending cuts for the Territorial Army.
and this sort of scaremongering is, in my view at least, politics of the worst possible kind and certain people should be ashamed of themselves.
For my own part I’m determined to be positive, this is precisely why rather than adding to the clamour of criticism of our local hospital this month, I welcomed the intervention at the maternity unit as a positive step forward to delivering the change that I know we all want to see there. It is however sometimes tricky to find the balance. Whilst personally I believe it wrong to use the maternity unit as a political football, I do however think it reasonable to highlight failings providing you offer a solution. Take for example figures published this month that show despite an increase in health funding and population in MK, away from the hospital front line NHS staff working in the community have actually fallen over the last year. All Doctors from 228 to 224 and the total qualified nursing staff from 545 to 506. My solution to this problem? We should look again at the plethora of targets which this Government seems so obsessed by and put patients clinical needs first.
Newport Pagnell clock appeal.
convinced that we will continue to go from strength to strength, and what better guide than Milton Keynes’ motto of ‘by knowledge, design and understanding’.
You can always tell when an election is on
the horizon as the claims and counter claims
become wilder and wilder. Whilst some are
just plain daft, others are laughable, my
particular favourite was a rather enthusastic
leaflet blaming the Conservatives for
introduction of tuition fees in 1998 even
though Labour came to power in 1997.
Others though are more cynical, recent
claims by one party that once again rural
North Bucks in under threat of vast tracts of
housing being imposed on it are utter
nonsense. After a great deal of work last year
by myself and others in Parliament the
regional plan was changed to remove the
requirement for 4,500 new homes and this is
now fixed for at least the next fifteen years anything that I can to help.
I am deeply proud of our community here in Milton Keynes and rural North Bucks, which I believe to be one of the best kept secrets in the UK and I remain determined to do everything that I can to ensure that we have a bright future locally. We do live in difficult times but with vision and leadership I remain
Before I do sign off I must just give another plug for the appeal for the Newport Pagnell clock, I enjoyed enormously collecting at the last farmers market with fellow volunteers but more support is needed!
Sarah & Sally – Complete their China Trek for Have a Heart
As a community we are at our strongest when we are united, most of the major achievements locally have been delivered with cross party support, and whilst it is right that issues should be debated at the coming elections, I hope that the unity shown here in North East Milton Keynes on so many issues will return soon after and I for one look forward, with your support, to continuing the good fight for our community.
Finally once Mr Brown calls the election my office in Newport Pagnell has to close for the duration of the campaign. If however anybody does have an emergency case please do ring the office on 01908 615757 and the answerphone will direct you as to how to get hold of me and I will of course do
Hi Phonebox Readers!
wide and a sheer drop down both sides if you trip, there would be no chance! But I somehow got over that, Sally was fine with this ☺ we then climbed down the mountain with only twigs to hold onto, but the views up there were out of this world and mountains were lightly dusted in snow, utterly beautiful.
Amazingly we, Sally and I, have now completed our Trek China Challenge for Have a Heart. Our Trek along the Great Wall was out of this world and their arenʼt that many words to describe just how awesome and stunning the wall and the views are. As you can see I have included some of our photos to give you an idea.
The more touristy parts of the wall were interesting and we came across locals that they call shadows, as they literally follow you as a shadow and there is one person for each trekker! They are there to help you climb the hard bits of the wall and sell you souvenirs (of course) so you need to be pretty blunt if you donʼt want to spend any cash. After 40ish minutes on the wall we managed to get rid of most of our shadows.
Most days we were up early (which isnʼt great for me
as I am not a morning person hee hee!) The first 2
days of trekking were very cold (-12 on day 2) and
the accommodation had no heating or hot water! But
we get past that (just after at least 5 layers of
clothes ☺) and enjoyed the walking. We were
advised that there would be plenty of steps, but hey almost ever step on the wall were steps. So we got a great leg workout, hee hee. The first full day of walking we had snow which was fabulous but a little slippery under foot. There were some challenging bits for me, on day two there was a ridge at the top of one of the mountains about a foot
Typically one of the trekkers paid his shadow to carry his bag!!
68 Phonebox Magazine
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Mark Lancaster TD MP
13a High Street, Newport Pagnell, Bucks MK16 8AR
Tel: 01908 615757 Fax: 01908 618433
The wall is so random (a little like Beijing) and there are odd steps all over the place, some steps as high as your knee and others you can barely call a step. So there was no rhythm to the walking which makes it more interesting.