Hello everyone,

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks politically with the Party conference season taking place, and we’ll have to see over the coming days whether we’re going to have an early General Election campaign.  As soon as Parliament is back in session, I’ll be once again representing residents’ concerns in Parliament till any election is called.  In the meantime, I’ve been getting on with working on local issues and here’s a brief update below.

 Roehampton Regeneration and JobCentre Plus

This week I met with Kathy Prior, who is the District Manager of JobCentre Plus, looking after Wandsworth. I’m concerned that Roehampton is not included in government’s Deprived Areas Fund (DAF) when it should be.  I’ve raised this issue formally with Peter Hain the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and this week I had chance to discuss it with Ms Prior aswell which was very useful.  Including Roehampton in the DAF it would help JCP managers direct local resources more easily to help get local people back into work. I also discussed with Kathy what support the JobCentre Plus can give Roehampton when regeneration plans get more advanced.  I want to make sure that Roehampton and other local residents can take advantage of the job opportunities Roehampton investment will bring – that means really thinking ahead about what skills employers will be looking for, training, and where/how any temporary jobsearch support on site might happen.  I’ll keep working on this.

Local Residents Association kicks off

The Triangle Residents Association in Southfields kicked off on Thursday night and had a great turn out from local residents who are interested in being involved.  We had local police at the meeting able to give an update on crime issues, local Southfields councillors Lucy Allan and Jenny Nickel were there and I was also able to give everyone an update as their MP.  It’s probably the nearest residents association to my own home, so a lot of the issues that came up – traffic and parking, tube services, pavements are ones that I’m very familiar with as a resident.  Most of all it was very good for us all to meet other local people who live just round the corner, and I’m sure that a lot of people who came will stay involved.

Fun Run for the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disabilty

It’s fantastic that we’ve got the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability based locally on West Hill and the weekend before last I was part of the RHN team that ran in the Womens’ HydroActive 5k Challenge run in Hyde Park.  It had around 20,000 women running for lots of charities and is an amazing event to be part of.  When I did it last year, I wasn’t as fit as I should have been, so doing the 5k was a pretty painful experience though I did manage to run all the way.  This year, I’ve generally kept much fitter, so I actually enjoyed it and it really was a fun “fun” run!

Thanks to all of you who are signing up to the MP Textline to let me know about your experience on the District Line and South West Trains – its really proving very helpful indeed. Remember, if you need my help as your MP, you can email me on greeningj@parliament.uk, write to me at the House of Commons, SW1A 0AA or come and see me at one of my weekly MP surgeries by calling 0208 944 0378.  I’ll do my best to help sort out whatever the problem is!

Best Wishes,
Justine Greening MP

October 4, 2007