Strong concerns have been raised by businesses in the centre of Folkestone about declining sales in the two months since the new parking restrictions came into place. I share these concerns and any reports that suggest local businesses are struggling have to be treated as very serious. Some businesses in the Bouverie Place shopping centre [...]

Put the date in your diaries, the Olympic flame and torch will be coming to our area on Wednesday 18th July 2012. As a member of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, one of our roles in parliament is to scrutinise the plans for the London Olympics, and to hold the [...]

Last Friday I welcomed the Minister for Sport, and Faversham MP, Hugh Robertson to the Romney Resource Centre in New Romney. We were there to mark the launch of the alternative curriculum education provision being delivered by the Charlton Athletic Community Trust. This is one of the most challenging areas of education, and one of [...]

This week we have received the very sad news of the death of Willie Richardson, who gave so many years of service to people on Romney Marsh, as a County and District Councillor and a former Coxswain of the RNLI Dungeness Lifeboat. He was also a wonderful man whose friendship and advice I hugely valued. [...]

Earlier in the year I raised the idea of making 11th November a public holiday as a memorial to the sacrifices in war of all service personnel. Following that article hundreds of people have expressed there support for the idea. Nearly 400 people joined the support group on Facebook and over 200 people voted in [...]

  I believe that Remembrance Day, 11th November should become a public holiday, as a living memorial to the sacrifice through death of millions of service men and women, from the trenches of the First World War, to our troops currently fighting in Helmand province in Afghanistan. This would be a particularly significant time to [...]