Welcome to my September round-up where you can read all about what I’ve been up to for the past month. My highlight was meeting Chester Paralympian and Taekwondo Gold Medallist, Amy Truesdale. It was great to celebrate Amy’s success at Chester Town Hall. I’m proud of Team GB and Paralympic GB’s success in Paris this summer and the part our Chester residents played in this.
As your Member of Parliament, I’ve continued to work on various issues raised by fellow residents via email, telephone, at my surgeries while Parliament has been in recess.
September has been a busy month with two weeks of Parliamentary activity followed by a busy Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. During this Conference recess, I’ve been able to visit organisations across Chester North & Neston. If you’d like me to visit your organisation or business, please get in touch.
As always, if you have any issues or questions about Government policies I can help with, please drop me a line at samantha.dixon.mp@parliament.uk
Tourism roundtable
It was great to celebrate World Tourism Day earlier this month. In celebration, I posted a video highlighting the fantastic attractions of our city to the thousands of tourists who visit every year.
To help boost our local economy and discuss ways to strengthen our tourism economy, I met with representatives of several local businesses, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Chester BID, Destination Chester and Visit England. I’d like to thank Enterprise Cheshire & Warrington for facilitating the meeting and the work they do promoting our local economy. Special thanks to Jamie Christon of Chester Zoo for chairing the meeting.
Charities meeting at the Bluecoat
Following the meeting with local business leaders, it was great to meet with several representatives of the charitable organisations based in the Chester Bluecoat building. The iconic building serves as a hub for local charitable organisations. If you or someone you know needs help, the Bluecoat building is likely to host an organisation who can help you.
Our city has a tremendous community of volunteers and charities. While it can hard to learn about the problems the charities are working on alleviating, it is always rewarding to meet the kind-hearted volunteers and workers who give so much of their time to help others.
MP Housing Surgery
Following the success of my latest housing surgery in Chester this month, I’ve organised a session more accessible to residents Neston, Parkgate, Willaston and the villages. Housing issues remain one of the busiest areas of casework I receive. If you or someone you know are experiencing issues with your housing, please reach out.
This month saw the celebration of Fairtrade Fortnight. It was great to celebrate this with the Neston Fairtrade Campaign. This group of volunteers do an excellent job of promoting the work of the Fairtrade in Neston. I’m proud to represent Chester, which became the first Fairtrade City in the UK over 20 years ago.
Fairtrade coffee morning in NestonFairtrade in Parliament
Following the Neston Fairtrade Coffee morning, I took the opportunity to meet with the Chief Executive of the Neston Community& Youth Centre to learn about the work they have planned. The centre also hosts a foodbank on Thursdays, with representatives from the Citizens Advice Bureau present to help attendees.
On one of the fair days this month, I managed to visit Willaston Meadow, to meet committee members of the Friends of Willaston Meadow. The volunteers are doing an incredible job to make the site a true asset to Willaston. It’s a beautiful spot, much loved by residents.
Friends of Willaston Meadows
As part of the upcoming Parliament Week in November, I am encouraging our local young people to get more involved with Parliament and our democracy. I plan to do this through an accessible, friendly competition to find out what our young people love about our fantastic city. If you know a young person interested in getting involved with this competition, please forward them this email or the graphic below to encourage them to participate.
UK Parliament Week competitionMP surgeries for constituents
I’d like to end this month’s newsletter by thanking you all for taking an interest in our area and signing up for this newsletter. I hope you found this newsletter interesting and informative and I look forward to sharing next month’s newsletter with you in what will surely be a busy October.
