Operation Stack has returned for the second time in a week, and again as a result of industrial action from ferry workers in France. This strike has closed the Port of Calais and also, once more, affected services through the Channel Tunnel. I think it is incredible that strike action in France can lead to the […]
Ask a Briton who most persecuted minority in the world are and few, if any, would nominate Burma/ Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya for this most unenviable of titles. Numbering around 1.1 million in Myanmar's westernmost state of Rakhine, the lot of the Rohingya has, if anything, worsened since a quasi-civilian government ended decades of military rule […]
This week we received the excellent news that the energy company Ecotricity, has withdrawn its application for the development of six onshore wind turbines at Snave on Romney Marsh. Building six large masts in the middle of Romney Marsh would have been completely inappropriate and out of keeping with the landscape. I believe there should […]
Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins has branded the way French authorities have handled the Calais crisis as "shameful". He attacked the French government for being "complicit in allowing migrants to travel to our border". He then slammed France for not doing enough to move the estimated 3,000 migrants on from the "squalid conditions" in […]
The Prime Minister has this morning met with the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary to discuss the situation in Calais to ensure that everything possible is being done to address the problems caused. Yesterday has to be one of the worst days we have seen in terms of disruption at the Channel Tunnel, caused […]
Last Friday I was the guest of Tim Waggott, the Folkestone resident who is Chief Executive of the Port of Dover, to visit the Harbour board and to see their plans for the future. It was great to see the port busy, and running smoothly, processing as it does five million vehicles and thirteen million […]
On Friday evening this week I have been invited by the Sandgate Society to deliver the Greenwall lecture, at 7.30pm in the Chichester Hall. The Society has been working at the heart of life in Sandgate Village for over fifty years to preserve its character, conserve its fine historic buildings and to organise events to […]
A few weeks ago I opened the new outdoor play area for the Punch and Judy nursery, which meets at Lympne village hall. This is a busy and popular nursery, and it was great to meet the team who run it, as well as some of the children. As a working parent with a young […]