As we head into Spring and towards Easter it’s great to see the daffodils out and to enjoy the lighter nights. There’s a lot of litter picks happening across Blyth Valley as part of the Great British Spring Clean. Why not get out and take part – it’s great exercise?
Another way to get great exercise is to walk a dog and I welcome the new dog park in Cramlington opened recently by the Town Council. Well done to the Councillors and Council staff involved in making this happen.
There are lots of community events taking place across Blyth Valley on the Coronation weekend. The Coronation itself takes place on Saturday 6th May at Westminster Abbey, there’s a spectacular Coronation Concert at Windsor Castle on Sunday 7th May and on Monday 8th May there’s a special Bank Holiday and ‘Big Help Out’ activities planned across the country. For many of us this will be the only Coronation we will see and it’s bound to be a very special weekend.
I recently introduced the Harrison Foundation to the Dales School in Blyth and I’m really happy to see them supporting the school’s innovative train project that featured recently on George Clark’s Amazing Spaces programme. The Harrison Foundation do a lot to support charities and community organisations doing good work to encourage social mobility in communities like ours and this project provides a very special setting for pupils to learn to read – an important enabler of social mobility.
Moving from community to the wider national political front I’m really pleased to see what the Government is delivering. Prime Minister Sunak’s announcements of new measures to tackle anti-social behaviour are very welcome and I’m really pleased to see Northumbria Police chosen as a Trailblazer force for two of the initiatives - Hotspot Policing and Immediate Justice. I’d like to think that my recent appeals to Secretary of State Gove about tackling anti-social behaviour when he visited Blyth to announce £20m in new Levelling Up funding might have played a part.
Stopping the boats is a really difficult problem but we’re making real progress demonstrating determination to control our borders. We must have strong deterrents for economic migrants - they must know that they will not stay here if the arrive by illegal routes. It is not enough to ‘go after’ the traffickers. They are criminal gangs based in different countries.
