The past few days have been worrying times for Attleborough – with over 100 staff now at the Banham Poultry site having tested positive for Coronavirus.
That’s why I remain firmly focussed on this issue and am calling for a proper, locally-led Track and Trace operation to be put in place ASAP to ensure that the outbreak is contained and not allowed to spread to the wider community and throughout our region’s farming and food processing industries – key components of our local economy.
My Quote to the EDP today…
“The Covid outbreak in staff at Banham Poultry has highlighted real issues with the Track and Trace system being run centrally from London by the NHS.
Tracing factory staff in our food processing sector – often low paid, overseas agency staff living in hostels cheek-by-jowel with workers in other plants – needs local knowledge.
To prevent infection spreading to other factories and towns, we need to trace, test and track all 800 Banham staff and their close contacts much more quickly.
That can’t be done with an APP or by NHS staff in London sending emails. It needs a team of local council staff and volunteers knocking on doors.
Louise Smith, the Head of Public Health in Norfolk, and our local Norfolk Public Health officers did a brilliant job stopping a pandemic in our care homes. They and local councils should be running track and trace. Not an NHS unit in London.”
Relevant Links
- My previous web-stories on this issue can be found: here and here
- Today's (3rd September) EDP article
- Tuesday's EDP article
(Please note that there have been a number of articles in the EDP on this issue over recent days. All can be found at their website: here)
The past few days have been worrying times for Attleborough – with almost 100 staff at the Banham Poultry site having now tested positive for Coronavirus.
That’s why, over the past week, I’ve been liaising closely with Public Health England, Norfolk County Council, Breckland Council and the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, as well as Ministers at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and pushing hard for a proper Track and Trace plan to contain the outbreak, avoid the spread of the virus to other communities and throughout Norfolk’s farming and food processing sectors, and prevent a wider lockdown.
Despite this, reports over the weekend that the Track and Trace response to the outbreak was slow, bureaucratic and overly-centralised continued.
The lack of proper Track and Trace following the outbreak amongst workers in the Norfolk poultry sector is potentially catastrophic to our vital local food industry & economy.
Norfolk is home to thousands of low paid workers in poultry & pork factories, many of whom live in hostels. All 800 staff at Banham and all their close contacts need tracing and testing. Urgently.
We should have hundreds of public health officials and volunteers out with clipboards this weekend knocking on doors. Every day the risk rises.
If this ends up with a pandemic and lockdown of Norfolks food businesses and towns like Attleborough, Thetford & Dereham there will be serious questions to answer about how this was allowed to happen.
We need a much more urgent local operation led by our local councils & local public health officials.
This morning’s emergency meeting provided some reassurance on the urgency of local Track and Trace now being taken, whilst also highlighting the problems & ongoing challenges which need sorting urgently:
1. Approx 1/3 of the staff who tested positive still not traced
2. Those who have been traced are concentrated in Yarmouth, Thetford, Attleborough and King’s Lynn
3. Urgent work is now being done by local councils to trace the outstanding staff who have tested positive, and their close contacts: likely to be approx 150
4. The tracing of workers in the food processing sector is complicated by locating often low paid overseas and agency staff, low cost accommodation & cultural barriers.
5. The Track and Trace system, run by NHS, is too centralised: Norfolk is still not authorised by NHS to run its own Track and Trace system.
6. We all agree this requires urgency & pace to prevent wider contamination across the food sector.
Relevant Links
(Please note that there have been a number of articles in the EDP on this issue over recent days. All can be found at their website: here)
It’s worrying times in Attleborough as Banham Poultry is asked to shut down a large part of its site in response to an outbreak of Coronavirus – to prevent a wider outbreak amongst workers both there and across Norfolk.
That’s why I am in close contact with the company, local councils, Public Health England and Government Ministers and officials to push for:
- A rapid Track and Trace operation to contain the outbreak and avoid a wider lockdown
- Compensation to help Banham Poultry, their suppliers and other companies in the farming and food processing sector take tough steps to protect the rest of us
- Help for vulnerable staff
My full statement can be heard here:
One of my key missions since becoming the MP for Mid Norfolk has been supporting our local town and village pubs – which play such a key role at the heart of our communities and rural heritage. So often they are at the centre of local innovation, and they provide a whole host of vital functions that keep our towns and villages thriving and vibrant.
That’s why I am so delighted to be supporting the efforts of Gressenhall residents as they look to save their beloved pub, The Swan.
The Gressenhall Community Enterprise (CAG) are hoping to raise £230,000 through the sale of shares in the project – and YOU can now buy those shares which are worth between £50 and £25,000. The CAG then hope to raise an additional £120,000 through social investment loans.
All of the moneys raised will then be used to buy the pub and return it to its former glory.
To learn more about the project, please visit the recent EDP article here and the brilliant Save Our Swan website here
(To see my previous web-story on this hugely worthwhile project, please click here)
Pubs are often at the very heart of our communities and rural heritage, playing a key role in keeping our villages and towns vibrant.
That’s why I was delighted to visit The Lodge Pub in North Tuddenham last year to see first-hand how they, as part of the ‘Pub is the Hub’ initiative, were combating the trend of community shops fading away by running their own community shop from their premises – a massive boost for North Tuddenham, the many communities that surround it and the pub itself.
Now The Lodge is up for the Best Pub Shop award (as part of The Great British Pub Awards) – having provided a key service over the past few months of lockdown. This is testament to the great work being done by the owners Vikki and Gavin Hunt, and their brilliant team – and a wonderful example of a local community doing all it can to cater for local residents. We must do all we can to support our local pubs and innovative enterprises like this.
Well done to The Lodge!
For further information and a link to where you can show your support for The Lodge by voting for them, please do visit the EDP article here
To see more about my previous visit to The Lodge, please click here
Thank you to the many schools, teachers, pupils, parents, governors and worried constituents who have contacted me in the last fortnight about the looming exam results shambles.
With a daughter due to start at University this autumn and a son in Sixth Form, I hugely understand and share the concern at the shambolic mismarking of 40% of the countries exam results, and have been urging Ministers to sort it out and do the right thing by accepting teacher assessed grades instead of relying on an untested bit of software developed by the Department for Education.
I’m appalled by the level of avoidable confusion, anxiety, delay and chaos caused to millions of pupils, families, schools, teachers and people involved in education, and that’s why I very much welcome the Government’s U turn. It’s not before time.
Hopefully this will now mean that the majority of those affected can move on and start to plan ahead with confidence.
Obviously I’m no longer a member of the Government and am hugely frustrated that it has taken Ministers so long to sort this out.
I regret to say that this catalogue of errors in this exam shambles has been hugely damaging to trust in the Department for Education and No10 Downing Street:
1. Mis-assessing 40% of pupils
2. Causing millions of pupils, families, teachers and people in education avoidable agony
3. Stubbornly refusing to accept any problem
((When it was *obvious* to all of us beyond Westminster that there was a looming problem and an obvious solution))
4. The saga has wasted valuable time this summer which is needed helping pupils catch up with lost lessons, sort out post GCSE and A level plans, fix the Further Education and Higher Education places confusion and help avoid COVID19 leaving a generation suffering long term.
5. Most seriously of all, to me, is the injustice of pupils in the least privileged schools being most discriminated against.
As a One Nation Conservative I believe we should be looking to help ensure that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have MORE chance to access the life-changing benefits of great education.
So.
I’m pleased that the Government has finally taken the right decision.
But very sorry it has taken this long.
Rest assured I will continue to raise concerns with Ministers. Please don’t hesitate to send in any further / future problems.
To see my most recent work on this issue, please see links here to:
1. My interviews yesterday afternoon on why this U turn was needed:
Times Radio: https://youtu.be/BToeOQnjzGc
BBC Radio: https://youtu.be/AcpkWfxluy0
Please see my latest video below, reporting back on my work in Mid Norfolk.
For too long our area has suffered from poor broadband coverage.
That’s why one of my key missions since becoming the MP of Mid Norfolk has been the improvement of superfast broadband services in our area, and the county as a whole.
Superfast, reliable broadband is essential to life in the 21st century – and with superfast broadband, alongside improved road and rail connections, we can unlock what I have called a ‘Rural Renaissance’ in our area, allowing businesses to set up in our villages and towns and creating new high-skilled jobs and opportunities.
A lot of fantastic progress has been made since 2010 – with superfast broadband coverage in Norfolk now up to 95%, but there is still so much more to do if we are to tackle the most rural parts of our county, including here in Mid Norfolk.
Mid Norfolk is one of three Norfolk constituencies among the slowest in the country for average broadband speeds. We must not be left behind.
I remain firmly committed to lobbying Government and all of the key stakeholders on this issue. I won’t stop until we address that final 5% in Norfolk, and get Mid Norfolk the superfast provision it desperately needs to flourish.
To read more, please do look at my historic work on this website and the recent EDP article in which I have commented (see here).
Improving connectivity in our part of the world was one of my first pledges when I began campaigning to be the MP for Mid Norfolk back in 2007.
The fact that Highways England will finally be getting on with the £300 million A47 improvements between North Tuddenham-Easton, and that Norfolk County Council are making progress in driving forward their campaign to deliver the Norwich Western Link, should be welcomed by us all. They will be two incredibly positive steps forward for our region.
That’s why I read with interest the article in the EDP this week (see here).
I agree with Jerome Mayhew MP and Cllr Martin Wilby that the Norwich Western Link will be hugely beneficial to the region, and tackle the awful rat-running plaguing communities to the north-west of Norwich. However, as I have consistently said, we must ensure that it, along with the North Tuddenham-Easton A47 dualling project, is delivered correctly – to prevent that awful rat-running being shifted to the communities to the west and south-west of the city. We cannot sacrifice those communities.
As part of my ongoing work with the local A47 Rat-running Taskforce that I support in Mid Norfolk, Highways England and Norfolk County Council Highways have now developed a proposed plan for community engagement on the key strategic Wood Lane/Berry’s Lane junction at Honingham, and on rat-running mitigation. This is good progress.
On Friday, the local Taskforce, local councillors and I will be meeting with both Highways England and Norfolk County Council Highways to scrutinise this community engagement plan in greater depth and discuss any tweaks or improvements that we feel should be made.
Rest assured, I shall continue to monitor the progress closely and, once the community engagement plan has been finalised, work with local stakeholders to ensure that it is enacted. The views of YOU as local communities is vital if we are to deliver these key infrastructure projects right.
To read more about my campaign to date, click here
My message to everyone in Mid Norfolk and the county on Norfolk Day! The day when we all come together to celebrate all that’s best about our county!
