Dear Constituent,

Hello and welcome to the Denton and Reddish Weekly News! 

I hope you've had a good week. Despite Parliament not being in session this week, I have still been incredibly busy, including some fantastic local events and important debates in Parliament. 

Please scroll down to the community board to start filling up the Bonfire Night and Christmas-time diary musts!

The Government has announced a U Turn on its decision to close rail ticket offices, meaning the offices at Reddish North, Levenshulme, Gorton, Mauldeth Road and Guide Bridge will remain open.

The announcement which came today followed a consultation that received 75000 responses, 99% of them being against the closures. This has followed months of campaigning and not to mention weeks of concern by passenger groups and disability charities worrying about the devastating consequences if this proposal was implemented.

The final nail in the coffin of the plan to close the ticket offices has been the industry watchdog Transport Focus, essentially agreeing with public feeling that there are “serious overall concerns” about the plans, and furthermore that some train companies were unable to show they would be able to sell a full range of tickets, handle cash payments and avoid excessive queues at ticket machines.

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, and Labour candidate for the new Gorton and Denton Parliamentary constituency said:

“The decision to keep ticket offices open really is the right one, and I am glad the Government has chosen to do the right thing. This will make such a difference to passengers all over the area. I really am delighted.

“Sometimes it feels like some unfair proposals like these are fait accompli, and in this case I really was not sure the Government would back down. But we have shown it can be done, and I pay tribute to all the campaigners, locally and nationally who have made our voice heard.”

SHOWCASING DESTINATION DENTON

So nice to meet with Seyfi Onur Sayin, the Consul-General of Türkiye, this afternoon.
We met in Cafe Plus, one of a number of Turkish businesses that have opened in Denton town centre in recent years.
It was good to hear about deepening UK-Turkish links, and he’s promised to come back to Denton to meet with other local business owners. Thanks to Cllr Murtaza Iqbal for joining us too.

MY DENTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE VISIT AND TOUR WITH NORTHERN EDUCATION TRUST

Great to be invited in to Denton Community College this morning to see some of the work Northern Education Trust is doing to improve both the academic performance of DCC and the life chances of the pupils there.
They have new leadership, a new curriculum, and vastly improved expectations for the children. I’m particularly impressed by the emphasis on getting year 11 pupils through their GCSEs with the best grades they can achieve after a tumultuous year 10.
Just walking around the school it’s already a better environment. No children out of class, students really focused on learning in the classrooms, teachers fully engaged in teaching with high expectations and praise and celebration for good work. Compared with my last visit to DCC it feels a much better school already.
The full Academisation hasn’t yet been concluded for legal reasons around the PFI of the building, but it’s been great to see that DCC is headed in the right direction overall with Northern’s early input.

TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK AT WHITTLES MEADOW!

This was a lovely event in Whittles Meadows. Thanks to Steve, Eddie and Chris for organising and for Linden Road Academy for joining us.
Councillor Allison Gwynne and I had a great (and muddy) time. Hopefully there will be a beautiful riot of colour down there next summer.
Thanks Friends of the Tame Valley
#TameValleyFriends

MY VISIT WITH ST JOHN'S FISHERS KS2 STUDENTS

Next week is Parliament Week and as part of that programme I’ve agreed to visit several schools in my constituency to talk about the work of an MP.
This afternoon I’ve had a great Q&A session with Key Stage 2 at St John Fisher RC Primary School & ASD Resource Base in Haughton Green.
We covered elections, law making, the King’s Speech, political parties, party leaders, the Gunpowder Plot, the English Civil War, human rights, House of Commons Vs House of Lords… and the questions were amazingly well thought out. I hope the answers were ok!
Finally it was nice to meet the new School Council. These councillors are already looking at improving their playground and have come fab ideas… who knows, there’s possibly an MP of the future somewhere here!