Westminster Week
Posted by Kitty Ussher, MP for Burnley, at 11:56, Fri 7 December 2007:
Dear Friend,
Well the first thing to say this week is congratulations to Padiham! I was really delighted to hear last Friday that we had won the ITV Granada Big Lottery Fund People’s Millions phone in vote to get over £50,000 to regenerate the riverside walkway through the centre. It was particularly gratifying to beat the Warrington project given how much larger that town is. It just goes to show how we can all pull together when we put our minds to it! Congratulations and thanks to everyone who went the extra mile to encourage friends, family (and indeed total strangers) to vote. I think my office was doing nothing else on that day!
If you didn’t vote for Padiham last week you have a chance to redeem yourself today by supporting the separate national bid by the environmental group Sustrans to upgrade local walking and cycling routes across the country including part of Padiham’s linear park on the old railway line. You can vote on-line now by visiting www.thepeoples50million.org.uk or watch the programme tonight, Friday 7th, for the phone number. It’s called the Sustrans Connect2 bid. If we all work together we can make it a double lottery whammy for Padiham.
But Padiham’s good news doesn’t stop there. I also heard last week that the Town Hall has received a £100,000 grant from national government (via the North West Development Agency) to refurbish it as a business and community centre. This money will be matched by Burnley Council to help make it a more accessible building. I’m a strong supporter of ensuring that Padiham Town Hall is a real community resource – its one of the reasons I hold my surgeries there – so this is an excellent opportunity.
I have some good news for Burnley as well to report this week. After three years of campaigning I can now announce that the first direct train service from Burnley to Manchester will finally start this Monday, 10th December. It’s a commuter service, designed to enable people to work in Manchester from Burnley without getting caught in the rush hour traffic on the M66. It leaves Burnley Central at 6.32am, arriving Manchester Victoria at 7.51am, and then departs Manchester at 17.29 in the evening getting back to Burnley at 18.50. Northern Rail has done it at my request by tweaking their existing timetables. In my mind its an important first step towards getting a faster, more regular service. Network Rail will in the next few weeks be consulting on more radical options including upgrading the Bolton line and looking at reinstating the Todmorden Curve: I’ll let you know.
This week in Westminster has been the usual end-of-year rush trying to get everything done before things pack up. In my case it seems like there’s even more to do because I’ll be taking some maternity leave from my ministerial job in the new year. With my government hat on, this week I am announcing how we will be taking action to make it easier for people to access debt advice when things go wrong, for example through citizens advice bureaux, and also supporting credit unions and other third-sector lenders to help them provide affordable credit so that people don’t get into debt in the first place. As well as putting around £130 million of government money into these policies over the next three years, we’ll also be working with the banks to ensure that there aren’t any parts of the country that don’t have access to lending at reasonable rates.
Back in Burnley on Friday I’ll be holding meetings to progress our work on a new Burnley college and university, as well as announcing the winner of our Christmas card competition. Watch this space!
Kind Regards,
Kitty Ussher MP
6 ways to contact Kitty Ussher MP
Write to: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA or 2 Victoria Street, Burnley BB11 1DD
Phone: 01282 450840
Fax: 01282 839623 By email: ussherk@parliament.uk
On-line: www.kittyussher.com In person: Office open 10am-4pm Mon-Fri. Next surgeries are Friday 7th December 3.30pm - 5.00pm in Padiham Town Hall and Saturday 8th December - 10.00am - 12.00am Byerden House Social Club, 191 Colne Road, Burnley. No appointment needed.
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