The constituency office of Reading West MP Martin Salter will be closed from 1pm on Wednesday 23rd December until 9am on Monday 4th January 2010.

Reading West MP Martin Salter, who himself was caught up in Monday’s snowbound traffic chaos in Reading for over eight hours, has called on local councils and the police to revise their emergency planning and contingency arrangements following the gridlock which paralysed towns across the Thames Valley.

Reading West MP Martin Salter gave his own personal tribute to former Reading Mayor and leader of the Lib Dem group, the late Bob Green at his funeral yesterday at Reading Crematorium in Caversham.

Reading West MP Martin Salter was last week elected chair of a new All Party Group on the River Thames. The Group, whose formal aim is to “to highlight and promote the economic, cultural, recreational and environmental value of the River Thames” had its inaugural meeting last Tuesday where Mr Salter was elected unanimously.

The run-up to Christmas is a ridiculously busy time in my constituency office. As well as the usual seasonal engagements, there is the official Christmas card to be designed and printed along with my Annual Report to constituents listing what I’ve been up to both here in Reading and in Parliament. As it is my last report, I asked my staff to dig out some retro pictures of past campaigns and, to my horror, they uncovered a photo from 1987 of my first Parliamentary election with me sporting a “pudding bowl” haircut. I included it because also pictured was my good friend and Whitley councillor John Cook, who sadly died shortly after I was first elected to Parliament in 1997, along with the late Doris Lawrence, the former Mayor of Reading.

Party political differences were put to one side last week with the visit of Conservative Shadow Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon and the Reading West MP and Labour’s angling spokesman, Martin Salter to the Benham Estate in Mr Benyon’s Newbury constituency. The MPs, who are both members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Angling inspected important river habitat restoration schemes to the River Kennet at Benham Park which the Estate are carrying out in partnership with Natural England.

Reading West MP Martin Salter today welcomed Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report as the right recipe to secure economic recovery and get public finances back on track.

Labour’s Parliamentary Angling spokesman Martin Salter used last week’s Commons debate on fisheries to describe as “ludicrous” plans by Natural England to re-introduce the beaver to the English countryside. The Reading West MP highlighted the new fish passage regulations and proposed new rules governing hydropower schemes which are designed to remove obstructions to migrating fish seeking spawning grounds.

The recent decision by the water regulator OFWAT to limit investment in sewage treatment works improvements over the next five years could have a damaging impact on important chalkstreams such as the Berkshire Kennet according to Reading West MP Martin Salter.

Reading West and Labour Vice-Chair for the Environment Martin Salter has this week delivered a message to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on behalf of 50 local groups in Reading ahead of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Mr Salter was one of three guest speakers at a recent climate change meeting organised at the Reading [...]