The last few weeks have seen some important wins in a number of local campaigns with which I have been involved.

Following the announcement of service changes from Reading Buses it became clear that the changes to the No 31 route would cause problems for a number of my constituents in Purley and the western edges of Tilehurst.  Consequently I met with the very helpful new managing director of the bus company, Mr James Freeman and put to him a possible solution of extending the No 28 service which is currently subsidised by Reading Borough Council to run on beyond the Triangle to Westwood Road, Dark Lane, Long Lane, Knowsley Rd, Purley and then to return to Tilehurst via Long Lane.  It is important that local people who rely on public transport are able to visit the shops, banks, doctors and dentists that are situated around the Tilehurst Triangle and there was a strong case for West Berkshire Council to use some of the Bus Grant that it has received from the government to extend the Number 28 service for the benefit of its residents.  I was therefore delighted to hear last week that West Berkshire had, to my surprise, come up with subsidy necessary to enhance the service as suggested.

The second piece of good news came in the post on Monday with the announcement from the consumer watchdog POSTWATCH that they were triggering a formal review of the proposed closure of the Wantage Road Post Office in my constituency and they expressed “serious reservations” about the planned closure of the Kentwood Hill branch.  In the past a decision to go for formal review by POSTWATCH has usually been enough to prevent the Post Office going ahead with closing the branch in question.  What amazed me reading the report from POSTWATCH was that it appears that none of the other Berkshire MPs had bothered to make representations to the only body with the power to halt any of the closures proposed by the Post Office.  It’s never hard for politicians and wannabe politicians to get their pictures in the newspapers purporting to be seeking to achieve something for local people but they need to follow it up with effective action.  

The third issue might not seem important to many people but those of us who care about the state of the river Kennet were delighted with the announcement by Thames Water that they did not intend to re-apply to extend their controversial abstraction licence to pump excessive quantities of water from the upper river at Axford.  Low summer flows in the Kennet have caused considerable damage to the ecology of this important chalk stream and damaged its bio-diversity.  I have campaigned against the Axford abstraction for many years and look forward to seeing the river recover.  Hopefully if the new Abingdon reservoir is built then the summer abstraction rate can be reduced still further. 

Finally, although this is not a campaign victory I couldn’t resist a wry smile at the sheer hypocrisy of the Prudential and the Association of British Insurers who have complained that thousands of homes built in the flood plain will be uninsurable.  Unless I’m very much mistaken this is exactly what Prudential themselves are planning to do down on Kennet Meadows!