Mark Garnier: a strong and active local campaigner
Being effective for your constituents is about more than just ‘writing a letter to the minister’. It is about predicting what is going to happen; it is about judgement of the effects of an action; and it is about taking direct action to try to ensure the best possible outcome for local residents. It is about being proactive, not reactive; it is about taking the lead, and not following; and it is about dealing with every issue, for all Wyre Forest.
Mark Garnier works hard campaigning on a whole host of local issues, seeking opinions from local residents on upcoming issues, and then working to help with them, seeking positive outcomes from the campaigns.
Here are just a few of the higher profile campaigns that Mark has been working on and leading with, raising Wyre Forest’s profile in Westminster.
Worcestershire based Head and Neck Cancer Services
Local activist and former cancer patient Paul Crawford is
leading a campaign to retain head and neck cancer services in Worcestershire.
The service, which involves surgical procedures, is under threat as the Three Counties Cancer Care Network is looking to move these vital services to Gloucester. This campaign has cross party support and Mark is keen to add his voice those working to keep these vital services in Worcestershire.
“The process being undertaken by the Three Counties Network uses dubious data and a flawed process. As it is, the process by which patients treated under these services is confused, as it exposes how lines of communication and treatment channels can be confusing to patients and difficult to administer.
“At the heart of this campaign lies my desire to improve health provision and outcomes for Wyre Forest and to do this it is important to look at the county as a whole. That is why it is nearly impossible for a lone campaigner to be able to deliver the desired outcomes and it is why all six of us who are either Conservative MPs or prospective MPs work together on these issues. Paul Crawford is a man with a very decent and important mission and we are all behind him.”
Driving Test Centre Closure
Local activist Julian Philips alerted Mark about the possible closure of Kidderminster’s driving test centre as early as August 2007. Mark was keen to support Julian’s campaign to keep the test centre open, recognising that the closure would both impact on local jobs amongst the local driving instructor community, and create increased costs to local driving students, already suffering under the economic situation and high costs associated with learning to drive.
Conservative shadow transport minister Stephen Hammond MP visited Wyre Forest in September 2007 to launch the petition to save the test centre, and in December over 1,000 signatures were delivered to Westminster.
The campaign carried on with monthly meetings with driving instructors at the Kidderminster Rugby Club. This was followed with a visit to the Driving Standards agency to lobby directly on behalf of Kidderminster, and followed by a public meeting in Kidderminster’s Corn Exchange where over 100 people met with the CEO of the Driving Standards agency.
Despite all this, the DSA were adamant of the closure, so Mark organised a trip for 40 people to go to London where a second petition was delivered to 10 Downing Street. This was followed by a meeting with Conservative shadow transport minister Robert Goodwill. Finally, a complaint was made to the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
Despite all this, the test centre closed at the end of May 2009, adding another local service closed under the current, Labour government.
Post Office Closures
As long ago as May 2007, Mark alerted Wyre Forest to the possible closure of up to 5 local post offices under the latest round of government cuts.
Mark started highlighting this in his regular newsletter and put out a number of press releases.
A collection of signatures registering anger at this followed and when four cuts were announced in August 2008, Mark was well ahead of the game.
Of the four due to be cut, one was already closed, another was happy to be closed, but two – in Comberton Hill Kidderminster and Queen’s Road the Walshes – were dead set against closure.
However, whilst local campaigns were set up to save the two post offices, Mark realised that saving the two viable post offices due to be axed would result in two others elsewhere being cut.
Mark was the only campaigner working to reduce the number of closures from 4 to two, trying to not only save the livelihoods of the two threatened post offices, but to protect other post offices locally from the same fate.
Radiotherapy Unit for all Worcestershire
Patients seeking radiotherapy treatment for cancer have to travel far out of our local district. But it turned out that the Three Counties Cancer Care Network was looking to site two new linear accelerators to compliment the existing three based in Cheltenham. Mark realised there was an opportunity to site the ‘linn-accs’ in Worcestershire and set about lobbying with the Worcestershire Conservative Parliamentary Team to get them sited in Worcester Royal Hospital.
Because of the downscaling of Kidderminster’s general hospital by the Labour Government it was never going to be possible to site the machines in Kidderminster – each unit needs an extensive support network that can only be supplied by a general hospital. That is why Mark chose the centre of Worcestershire to site the machines.
Sure enough, in July 2008, it was announced that the Worcester Royal would receive one of the new linn-accs, providing central Worcestershire based cancer care for the county.
Merger of West Mercia Police
In 2005 it was announced that West Mercia Police would be forcibly merged to form a new West Midlands police force.
It was generally felt that this was not a good thing as West Mercia was acknowledged as one of the best police forces in the country.
It was also thought that merging would harm its excellent reputation.
Mark and his local Conservative colleagues collected over 2,500 signatures agreeing that the merger was not welcomed.
Then, in April 2006, he delivered that petition to Westminster.
Shortly after, the Home Secretary announced that the merger proposals were not popular and shelved all plans for police mergers.
Telephone Masts
The rolling out of the 3G network required a tripling of the density of mobile telephone masts across the country. But whilst people are pleased to have better services on their mobile telephones, the building of telephone masts blight the local neighbourhoods of those who live near their development.
Residents have been rightly lobbying their local district councillors to stop the building of these masts through the planning process, but the reality is that the laws in place to allow telephone mast development give council planners very limited powers.
The only way to hand back planning power to local authorities was to change the law.
Mark worked with Conservative MP David Currie in 2006 to help put forward a Private Members’ Bill to restore planning powers to local authorities. In time honoured fashion, the Government killed the bill and since then most of the new masts have been built, but it is important to demonstrate that there are a variety of ways to help local residents over a whole range of issues.
Birthing Unit at Kidderminster Hospital
Kidderminster, even after the downscaling of the hospital, enjoyed a midwife led birthing unit. This unit was available for about 250 mothers every year who were due to have uncomplicated births and who could elect to give birth to their babies without the support of a full maternity hospital. Sadly, a string of tragedies resulted in the birthing unit being closed pending an enquiry that was delivered in 2005.
Subject to the enquiry’s 27 suggestions being put into place, the birthing unit was allowed to re-open, but for various reasons this has not happened.
Mark continues to lobby the local health authorities for the birthing unit to return.
