Today, a representative from the Conservative Social Justice Policy Unit visited Oldington and Foley Park in Kidderminster to learn more about local social deprivation. With the southern Kidderminster ward featuring in the bottom ten wards in the whole of England in terms of social deprivation indices, there was a lot to learn.
Sarah Tyler, who works for former Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith’s Social Justice Policy Unit, came to Wyre Forest on the invitation of Mark Garnier. Her visit was hosted, and organised by Nick Parker who heads up the Oldington and Foley Park Neighbourhood Pathfinder, based at Birchen Coppice Middle School.
The purpose of the trip was to highlight to the Conservative policy unit the problems of social deprivation that affect rural and market town communities.
The visit started with a tour of the area, looking at the more obvious problems and highlighting such anomalies that (for example) result in parts of footpaths being the responsibility of Wyre Forest Community Housing, whilst a different part of the same footpath is County Council Highways, and a further part is Wyre Forest District Council – resulting in a lack of joined up thinking on repairs, maintenance and cleaning. This was followed by a visit to the police base in Birchen Coppice Middle School to discus local policing issues, followed by a brief chat about the advantages of the concept of extended use schools, where a school is designed to house more local amenities than just a centre for education.
Lunch was a highlight with members of the Junior Pathfinders team and David Walker, Bishop of Dudley.
Immediately after lunch was a visit to the Sure Start centre, hosted by local manager Philip Hoare to see the facilities offered there.
A brief visit the Oldington and Foley Park Network furniture and electrical goods re-use centre was followed by a round table discussion with local residents and local councillors Sue Meekings and Nathan Desmond.
Commenting on the visit, Mark Garnier said: “I was truly delighted to be able to bring Sarah to Wyre Forest and I am very grateful to both her and to Nick Parker for all their tremendous efforts. As far as I am concerned, the issues of social deprivation are some of the most significant affecting Wyre Forest. Remember, this is not some inner city sink estate in Manchester or Bristol – this is semi rural Worcestershire. Yet right in the heart of our community we have a ward that falls in the bottom ten of all the wards in England in terms of social deprivation. That is a truly shocking situation and one that I am not sure people locally have fully understood.
“People like Nick Parker do a fantastic job locally and it is a tribute to him and his team that they are making real progress with the local problems. Given Nick’s success, it struck me as important that the lessons he has learnt have been put back into the Conservative policy making machine.
“I am very conscious that the peculiar political nature of Wyre Forest means that it has no effective voice in Westminster – no voice that inputs directly into any policy making machine. This is in no way a direct criticism of Dr Richard Taylor, but more a comment on the fact that the political system in this country is based entirely on party politics. The only way to get something done about something as important as social deprivation is to take advantage of the party system. That is what I am trying to do for Oldington and Foley Park and I know that as a result of Sarah Tyler’s visit, the problems that affect Oldington and Foley Park are now making up part of the database that will form Conservative social policy should we form the next Government.
“One of my key priorities is to address the problems that we find in Oldington and Foley Park and other areas in Wyre Forest. But whilst it may all seem doom and gloom, there are some initiatives here that are worth repeating elsewhere. For example, the idea of extended schools. This enlarges on the school as simply being an education facility for children and grows it into a community centre that provides facilities for all the community based on the assets of the school itself. Also the use of partnerships and shared ideas and resources.
“But if there just a few things that I hope Sarah will take away with her and feed back into our policy unit, it is the idea of simplification of resources and aid facilities. It is the simplification of the benefits system that means people fear getting back to work for fear of losing their home. And it is the fundamental truism that a good society is borne out of a healthy family with a clearly defined judgement of what is right and wrong.”