Priorities For South West Norfolk....

People in South West Norfolk, as with residents all over the UK, have seen the decline of our National Health Service after 13 years of Conservative Government.

A record number of people are now awaiting hospital treatment causing pain and frustration for many, including people in our area.

<BR>To make matters worse Norfolk has been particularly badly affected by the crisis in adult social care with thousands of care worker vacancies across our county and serious weaknesses in the quality of care.

Access to dentistry is also poor, with just 1.1 dentist for every 10,000 people in the Breckland area. Statistics for the Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough aren’t much better at 1.6. No wonder Norfolk has been called a ‘dentistry desert’ with residents too often left in pain and despair.

A lack of access to dentistry for children is of particular concern with a sharp rise in the number of children presenting at hospital with rotting teeth.

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When it comes to mental health, the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust has long been failing their residents, rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission and, despite repeated promises, there’s little sign of improvement.

Our NHS facilities have been left to decline too. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn, a vital resource for many in South West Norfolk, left with a crumbling roof held up by more than 3,000 metal props.

This ridiculous situation has been impacting patient services with sections of the hospital routinely closed off for inspection or emergency work.

Only after years of campaigning by staff and community champions did the Government belatedly announce the hospital would be added to the New Hospital Programme. But the dither and delay has meant a new hospital is still many years away and the failing ceilings will continue to impact upon service delivery.

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If elected, Terry would make securing improvements for our NHS and social care system his top priority.

Through casework he deals with as a Councillor, in recent years he has seen first-hand just how inadequate the current situation is.

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He has supported residents to get improved services from the Mental Health Trust, writing to the Chief Executive to outline service failings with specific cases. Terry has liaised with the Norfolk Adult Social Care team to advocate on behalf of families, and he has listened to your concerns and stories about local health provision through his regular Councillor surgeries and canvassing sessions.

Living in South West Norfolk, Terry understands the challenges faced by many, whether that be accessing a GP appointment, obtaining vital medication from a pharmacy or just seeing a dentist.

The situation with our NHS is also personal for Terry and is one of the motivations for him to put himself forward as a candidate for Parliament, despite never wanting to be an MP previously.

In November 2022, Terry’s mother experienced an unexpected heart attack and spent three weeks in hospital undergoing bypass surgery. That experience was frustrating and concerning enough, with delays answering the 999 call and accessing an ambulance.

Then a month later things took an even worse turn when Terry’s father, Trevor, contracted pneumonia and Covid-19 and spent two months in intensive care at West Suffolk Hospital.

Trevor tragically passed away on the 29th January 2023. Throughout these experiences, Terry has seen first-hand how, despite the best efforts of staff, our NHS services are struggling to cope. Urgent investment and change are desperately needed.

Terry supports the Labour Party’s policy ‘Build An NHS Fit For The Future’ which includes proposals to cut NHS waiting lists by funding two million more hospital appointments a year, through putting an end to the ‘non-dom’ tax status.

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Terry wants to see greater support for local councils like Norfolk County Council so that they can deliver the adult social care required, with improved pay and conditions for staff and an end to the out-sourcing of so much care provision to a myriad of expensive care providers.

Terry also supports calls for the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust to be disbanded.

Wages across South West Norfolk are among some of the lowest in the country. This affects so many other aspects of people’s lives including education, housing, and health. We need a focus in South West Norfolk on improving the number of good quality jobs with decent wages by helping local employers to grow and develop.

Terry supports Labour’s plan to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth at the core. This focus will see everyone, not just a few, better off.

Life in a rural community can be expensive. House prices are often unaffordable to many and out of reach of the average-waged rural worker.

Rents in many market towns and villages are disproportionate for Norfolk’s low wage economy. The cost of transport is a greater proportion of people’s expenditure than elsewhere.

Terry believes improving connectivity is key and his priority will be increased super-fast broadband provision and addressing mobile phone “not-spots”. For our economy to thrive, we must ensure our communication methods are first class.

A large proportion of people in our rural communities are self-employed and we need to ensure they have the tools to grow and succeed. We’ve seen rail fares increase dramatically over recent years and Norfolk County Council’s funding for public transport slashed.

A convenient and affordable rural transport service must become a reality – with a focus on trains as well as buses.

Banks are closing at an alarming rate in Norfolk with many market towns being left without a service entirely.

Terry supports the creation of Banking Hubs to ensure services remain available and would welcome the creation of community-owned banks. Terry is a lifelong supporter of credit unions too and would like to see these featured more widely in our rural community as they offer a pragmatic alternative to the big banks that are abandoning our communities.

Norfolk County Council, and its subsidiary trading company Norse, have huge buying power, as do our district and borough councils along with wider public sector organisations.

Terry wants to see an aggressive local procurement approach, with public sector organisations buying from and supporting Norfolk-based businesses whenever possible. This is something he has championed as Chair of Thetford Town Council’s Finance and Personnel Committee.

Selling services to public bodies is often cumbersome with payments slow and the procurement exercise a labyrinth.

We need to simplify the process to support a greater number of small and medium-sized businesses in our county.

Terry supports the policy put forward by Labour Coast and Country that would ensure everywhere has at least one community facility of some sort, be that through the ‘Pub as a Hub’ model, co-located public and other services or a modern village hall.

Terry led the way with the Charles Burrell Centre, a former high school closed by Norfolk County Council, progressing from a redundant building to a thriving business and community centre with a £500k annual turnover.

Terry is also a shareholder of the Blue Bell in Stoke Ferry – a project that saw residents in the village rally round to buy a local pub and turn it into a community hub. Along with the Fox at Garboldisham these are great examples of community owned and operated facilities.

We live in a beautiful area with fantastic natural environments whether that be areas such as Thetford Forest or the rare chalk-streams of the Little Ouse. Climate change represents a present threat in South West Norfolk and brings huge challenges to farmers and others that rely on the land and rivers.

Terry believes we are facing both a climate and biodiversity emergency and supports policies addressing these challenges.

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Terry would like to see improvements to planning policy to ensure the planning system properly considers environmental impacts. Such issues are not currently given sufficient weight. He would also like to see councils producing a climate and environmental risk assessment for every major policy decision taken – in the same way that they currently undertake an equality impact assessment.

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Through his role as a Norfolk County Councillor, Terry has criticised the loss of County Farms land and wants to see this land-holding increased. There needs to be a return to the roots of the scheme and greater emphasis on supporting small-scale and entry level farmers. He wants improved environmental standards for our County Farms Estate too as an example across the County. There needs to be a focus on identifying surplus land, whether that be public or private, and repurposing this for energy production and biodiversity projects, leading to the creation of, for example, bee and pollinator corridors.

Terry supports the ban on fox hunting and opposes fracking and the use of damaging fertilisers. Terry supports the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s “rooftop revolution” campaign that supports greater use of roof space for solar panels and is against large scale solar farms on otherwise useable land.

If elected, Terry would work with Norfolk Police and the Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner to tackle the impact of illegal hare coursing.

Terry wants to see greater access to the countryside by improved maintenance of rights of way, by opening up new ones and improving accessibility. His aim is to ensure all Norfolk rights of way are identified and on the “definitive map” as well as supporting local communities to identify and register rights of way.

On farming, Labour has pledged to improve food security and boost the UK’s agriculture sector with a “New Deal for Farmers”, including a target that at least half of the food used in hospitals, schools and prisons is British.

This is important to our rural economy because analysis has showed that more than 6,300 farms in the UK agricultural sector have gone out of business since 2017, including nearly 5,000 meat, fruit, vegetable and dairy producers.

Over the same period there has been a 30 per cent fall in the number of jobs in agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Terry supports Labour’s plan to sign a new veterinary agreement with the EU recognising that, if successful, this would hugely cut red tape for British farmers by getting rid of many checks on food and agricultural goods at ports.