I often feel that the title of this column can be misleading – whilst I do spend Monday to Thursday each week in London, my focus is always on what can benefit the people in Mid Dorset and North Poole. I am always pleased to return home to Dorset on Thursday evenings, to be able to spend as much time as I can in our beautiful county.
In recent months, I am pleased to have worked closely with local councillors, and officers, to support their decision to pause the partial review of the local plan in Purbeck. I have had a variety of meetings with residents’ groups, including LympWatch in Lytchett Minster and CALM in Lytchett Matravers, who are all doing an excellent job of engaging with the consultation process, and helping to shape its outcome. I have met the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, emphasising that any housing developments should be appropriate, and not imposed by central government. I continue to have meetings and discussions with Purbeck District Council over housing provision, but ultimately the decisions are made by your elected members at Purbeck District Council. I will continue to support councillors as they move through the independent review of the process that is currently under way, and I am delighted that Purbeck have listened to all of our representations.
There is a need to have some new housing to meet the needs of local families, but it should not be to the detriment of those already living here. Dorset is a wonderful place to live, and part of that is the amount of open space and countryside that we have, as well as the stunning Jurassic coastline. I will continue to press for using brownfield sites for developments, and to protect the Green Belt.
I was delighted to recently meet a representative from Dorset HealthCare who is the lead on Armed Forces Community Health and Wellbeing, to discuss the support available for service personnel and their families. Dorset has a huge number of current and former members of the armed forces and we continue to push for more support. As a result, the Ministry of Defence is consulting on changes to the compensation scheme for military personnel. Effectively, it will mean automatic large compensation payments to those who are injured in the course of service, or their families if they are killed, without having to take the MoD to court. This is a huge step forward and I would encourage you to take part in the consultation and spread the word! The link to the consultation is on my website under “Have your Say”.
Also on my website are links to further consultations, and information about boundary and council changes in Dorset. I have attended a variety of meetings about these changes, including speaking to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. I attended the Boundary Commission meeting, and was very keen to emphasise that Corfe Mullen and Broadstone should not be in different constituencies. There are strong community ties between the two, and a number of residential areas are shared between them, with a common schooling pyramid centred on Corfe Hills school which itself physically straddles the border between the two. I look forward to hearing what is finally decided, and hope that our communities can continue to work together.
Every year I hold a Christmas card design competition for local schools, and again this year I had a fantastic range of designs to choose from. Not being very artistic myself, I was pleased to be able to delegate the judging to Vic Martin and “Art on the Heath” who chose some excellent pictures – the winning designs are on my website and facebook.
For information about current consultations, and up to date news about what I have been doing in both London and Mid Dorset and North Poole, please do visit my website. www.michaeltomlinson.org.uk
As we start 2017, I will continue to visit local schools, charities and businesses, and will continue with my regular surgeries for constituents. If you have an issue that you need help with, please do get in touch; email me on [email protected] or contact my office on 01202 624216. You can also follow what I’ve been doing on Twitter @Michael4mdnp or Facebook www.facebook.com/michael4MDNP