Dear Constituent,

 

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, has welcomed Home-Start Oldham, Stockport & Tameside (HOST)’s successful bid for Lottery funding.

HOST is a local charity of trained volunteers and expert support helping families with young children through their challenging times.

Home-Start volunteers have parenting experience and work alongside parents, in their own homes, to help them cope with the stresses and strains of life and make sure they have the skills, confidence and strength they need to nurture their children.

HOST has been awarded £80,000 of funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to enable them to hire more staff to deal with the higher demand for their services as a result of COVID-19 lockdown.

Andrew Gwynne said:

“As a long-time patron of HOST, I could not be more delighted about this funding award from The National Lottery Community Fund.

 

“HOST do an absolutely fantastic job of supporting parents across my constituency and beyond, and ensuring that children in our area have the best possible start in life.

 

“The Coronavirus crisis has been a very difficult time for many and this has been reflected in the higher demand for HOST’s services. This funding will go a long way to meeting that demand.”

 

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, has met with the Lawn Tennis Association to discuss their plans for public tennis development in the constituency.

The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the governing body for tennis. The LTA has started the ‘Play Your Way’ initiative, a new drive to support local authorities with a package of initiatives to make local tennis venues accessible and open-up park tennis to their communities.

As part of this project, the LTA has identified over 1,000 parks across Britain that they want to prioritise, including Victoria Park in Denton and North Reddish Park in Reddish.

Gwynne met with Paul Bennett and Sam Foakes from the LTA at Victoria Park to discuss these plans, which would mean improving tennis facilities in the two parks, as well as the potential for a new indoor community tennis facility in Tameside, possibly in Dukinfield. There is also the possibility of a new outdoor pitch at Reddish Vale.

Andrew Gwynne said:

“It was great to meet with Paul and Sam from the LTA to discuss their exciting plans for public tennis in the Denton and Reddish constituency.

 

“Keeping fit has been more difficult than usual during lockdown and tennis is a really fun way to do this, so I am very supportive of any efforts to make the sport more accessible.

 

“I’ve promised to link the LTA up with the two Councils, Park Friends Groups and the Sports Trusts so they can develop these proposals further.”

 

I quite often hear that politics is boring. As a politician, obviously I completely disagree, but I do understand how it can sometimes sound overly complex, dry or remote from real life. One topic which sounds particularly dry and complicated is local government finance, but it really couldn’t be less remote from our everyday lives. Our local councils need to be funded properly to deliver a whole range of services that we all rely on, from bin collection and street cleaning to adult social care to planning and licensing.

 

Since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in 2010, central Government funding for our councils has been slashed, with our councils losing the equivalent of 60p out of every £1 that they received under the last Labour Government. These are easy cuts for the Government to make as they force councils to make difficult decisions and take blame, rather than the people at the top of Government who decided to make the cuts in the first place. 

 

With councils already struggling financially, the Coronavirus outbreak poses a big threat as so much of the frontline response – including supporting shielded people and local businesses – fell on the shoulders of our councils. Council leaders were relieved, therefore, when the Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick repeatedly told them at the start of the crisis that they should spend “whatever it takes” to deal with the outbreak and that the Government would repay them the costs. Taking him at his word, councils across England spent what was needed to support their communities.

 

Stockport’s Labour council, for instance, has really risen to the challenge, not just in supporting the borough through the crisis but also in doing the right thing and preparing for what comes afterwards.

 

Unfortunately, it has become apparent that the Government does not intend to fulfil its promise to fund “whatever it takes”. In Stockport alone, this will leave about a £34 million gap in the Council’s budget. The issue isn’t just confined to our borough – the crisis will cost councils across Greater Manchester around £732 million, leaving a funding gap of £368 million even after some emergency support from the Government.

 

Unless the Government is true to their word, we could see councils across the country go bankrupt. And this isn’t party political, around 80% of councils are thought to be close to bankruptcy and this includes councils of all political persuasions covering everything from large cities to the most rural areas. For the sake of the services we all rely on, the Government needs urgently to give councils the funding they need.