The River Wey and other watercourses across Guildford constituency is now under more threat as Government fails to take action on water companies

Local Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate Zöe Franklin calls for Angela Richardson MP to change her position ahead of the next vote in Parliament

The local Conservative MP for Guildford has been criticised by local campaigners after voting in favour of water companies dumping sewage in local rivers.

I have lived and studied in Guildford for more than 20 years and before that, I grew up in Farnham. Visits to Guildford as a child were always a treat, so as you can see, Guildford is in my blood and I am pleased and proud to support Guildford Borough Council's bid for city status for Guildford. It would, of course, be a 'third-time lucky' bid and I am hopeful that my home town will this time be granted the city status it deserves. The City of Guildford has a positive ring to it and as the county town of Surrey, with a Cathedral and a University, it makes complete sense for Guildford to be granted city status by Her Majesty to celebrate her 70 years on the throne next year.

Last week MPs voted on the Environment Bill and as part of that, they had the chance to vote for an amendment that would have stopped private water companies from dumping raw sewage into the UK's rivers and coastlines. A 'no brainer' I hear you say; of course, MPs would vote for that.

As with so many votes and Conservative MPs, the obvious choice was not the one they made and 265 of them voted AGAINST the amendment which means it is not included in the new Environment Bill. Put another way, they voted to allow sewage to continue to be dumped into our rivers and coastlines - Guildford and Cranleigh's Conservative MP Angela Richardson was one of them.

The continuing fuel supply crisis has alerted the public to the problem of HGV driver shortages. What's particularly concerning is that this crisis did not come out of the blue and nor is the road haulage sector the only one struggling to fill vacancies.

Speaking to BBC Surrey Radio on Monday this week I highlighted the fact that the worker shortage was entirely predictable, Boris Johnson's Conservative Government has been fully aware of it for many months and yet they failed to act on this, thus leaving the public to suffer their lives being thrown into turmoil yet again. (You can listen to my interview here.) However, I wanted to share in more detail about this issue as many people will not be aware of the full extent of the worker shortage problem.

Liberal Democrats from across Surrey came together on Saturday last week to join in Pride in Surrey celebrations in Godalming. Led by local Parliamentary Spokespeople Zöe Franklin, Alasdair Pinkerton and Paul Follows, councillors and activists took part in the parade and hosted a stall at the event.

Last week Lib Dem MPs and I spoke out against the Conservative Government who, including Guildford and Cranleigh's own MP, voted through a 1.25% National Insurance tax hike for individuals and employers. Today I want to share an update to this sorry saga with you.

Guildford Liberal Democrats are delighted to announce that they have reselected local campaigner, Zöe Franklin, to be the Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Guildford. Zöe becomes the first Blue Wall election candidate in the country to be selected by the party.

Last week the Guildford Dragon published a piece on post-16 education which includes some comments from me on the issue - you can read it via this link https://www.guildford-dragon.com/2021/08/03/most-businesses-say-a-university-degree-is-unimportant/. These are just a snippet of the full comment that I shared with the author (I appreciate space is at a premium in news articles) so I thought it worth sharing them in full.

June is not just the time of year when we start getting more sunshine, longer days and all the fun that Summer brings with it.

June is LGBTQ+ Pride month.

The Guildford Liberal Democrat team would like to wish everyone a Happy Pride. We believe, as a party, that no one should face discrimination because of who they are or who they love and we will fight along side the LGBTQ+ community until we have true equality both locally in Guildford, across the UK and beyond.

Yesterday the news broke that the verdict of Ofsted's most recent monitoring visit to Surrey County Council's Children's Services would not be published until after the election on Thursday 6th May. The explanation for this from the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is that "it is normal practice to delay publication until after an election so as not to influence the result".