Tag: Stewart Jackson

Peterborough District Hospital – proposed development ‘a complete mess’

07:08 Thursday 2nd July 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Our top story for Cambridgeshire this morning, “It’s too slow and it’s too messy.” That’s the verdict of some people in Peterborough on the work going on at the old District Hospital site off Thorpe Road. It’s been just under a year since it was announced the old PDH site would be turned into 350 new homes and a brand new primary school. Twelve months on, and many people not too happy with the progress. Our reporter Sophia Alipour has been speaking to some of them outside the old hospital remains.
(TAPE)(OB)
PUBLIC ONE: It looks disgusting.
PUBLIC TWO: Yes it’s horrible from the outside.
SOPHIA ALIPOUR: What would you like to see built here instead?
PUBLIC ONE: Something nice to look at. Not something ugly. Maybe a homeless shelter, ‘cos I think homeless people live there.
PUBLIC TWO: Something like flats or houses, which is what it was meant to be.
SOPHIA ALIPOUR: Could I ask you to describe what the front of the old hospital currently looks like?
PUBLIC THREE: Half falling down and derelict.
PUBLIC FOUR: I’m surprised they haven’t done much more than they have.
PUBLIC FIVE: We work opposite the building. There was a little bit of noise a couple of weeks ago, but that’s been it. A slow process.
PUBLIC SIX: A mess. A complete mess. I wish they would get on with it.
(STUDIO)(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well Peterborough’s MP Stewart Jackson has told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire he’s happy with progress at the site, despite work apparently slowing down around the General Election. But Peterborough City councillor Ed Murphy has expressed his concerns, and he joins me now. So what do you think to the progress there Ed?
ED MURPHY: I’m not too concerned about the progress, which has been very shortcoming. The Hospital has now been there for fifty years. I’m looking at it at the moment. It’s still up, and it’s going to take some time to take it down, because it’s going to be quite a feat to take it down. What I’m concerned about is the current plans. The school hasn’t got adequate play facilities for the children, and they need to extend the site. And I think the developers are probably going to come in and try and go up more stories than they really should. So I’m hoping that the City Council do their utmost to ensure that development benefits local people, not just the bottom line profits of the developers.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So I was looking at this site on Google Maps last night, because when you drive past on Thorpe Road you might glance to your left, but you don’t always get a proper look, do you? And what surprised me was actually the size of this site, because 23 acres, it sounds quite big, but when you factor in a primary school, presumably some houses having gardens, car parking as well, maybe it’s not actually that big for 350 homes.
Continue reading “Peterborough District Hospital – proposed development ‘a complete mess’”

Region a hotspot for road traffic accidents

08:09 Monday 22nd June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: For the first time figures have been released that show where the people involved in accidents have come from, and not just where the accidents took place, and it’s not good news for people from Peterborough and North East Cambridgeshire. Both those parliamentary constituencies ranking very highly in these figures, more accident prone that most it seems in those parts of Cambridgeshire. These findings have been released by PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. David Davies is the Executive Director.
(TAPE)
DAVID DAVIES: Some road networks are more hazardous than others, particularly if you’ve got rural roads, some fast single carriageway roads. And it can simply reflect higher levels of driving, or for example motorcycle use, or pedestrian use in some cases. But I think in Cambridge, in terms of North East Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, it is largely about drivers. That’s the figures for car occupants, which stand out as being higher than average.
(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well when Stewart Jackson the MP for Peterborough heard of these figures he posted a message on Twitter saying he needed to investigate. We can talk to him now. So have you had a closer look at these figures Stewart? What do you think they tell us about Peterborough?
Continue reading “Region a hotspot for road traffic accidents”

Care home closures at Peterborough hustings

11:45 Friday 1st May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Is it time we talked about adult social care in a serious way Stewart Jackson? Is it time we looked after our elderly in a better way, and spent more money on it? Surely not the time to be closing care homes, is it?
STEWART JACKSON: Well I’m not going to defend the City Council’s decision on care homes. They’ll have to come on and defend that themselves. My view is that in a sense adult social care and the co-ordination between acute district hospitals, GPs and the City Council is almost an issue above politics. Because none of us can stop the demographic change, the number of over 85’s doubling in the next twenty years.
PAUL STAINTON: And it’s time to do something now isn’t it Lisa Forbes, and everybody get together on this before it’s too late In thirty years time we’re all going to be looking after each other on zimmer frames, aren’t we?
Continue reading “Care home closures at Peterborough hustings”

Peter Breach – North Westgate in a nutshell

09:26 Thursday 19th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PETER BREACH:

“Well Peterborough’s a special place. It’s a major city, and North Westgate has been as you’ve indicated in serious need of regeneration for quite a long time. Now’s the time to get on with it.

“The concept is a new regional leisure centre caught in the heart of Peterborough city, driven by a multiplex cinema, eight screens or more, a large piazza around the church, restaurants, shops, bars, a food hall, and a large number of apartments. And indeed some offices and possibly even a health hub.

“The aim is to make it somewhere that not only Peterborians but others living within a twenty or thirty mile radius will see as an attractive place to visit and spend time, popping into a coffee shop or a restaurant as they stroll through the piazza.

“A lot of effort has gone into this. There’s support from all parts of the city. Marco Cereste the Leader, Stewart Jackson the MP, and all the councillors we’ve met have been extremely supportive, and indeed everyone we’ve met. So I have every hope this is going to be delivered now.

“At this stage we are starting discussions with major funders for this sort of scheme. It may even be overseas funding. We’ll have to see. But it’s too early to strike a deal until the outline consent is secured, which we hope will be before the end of this year.”

======

Hinchingbrooke Hospital franchise experiment – apportioning the blame

08:18 Wednesday 18th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The taxpayers have been left exposed by the failure of the Hinchingbrooke Hospital franchise. That is the very damning conclusion of the group of MPs who sit on the Public Accounts Committee. Private company Circle handed back the franchise to run the hospital just three years into a ten year contract. Well the Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson is a member of the Public Accounts Committee. He joins us now from our studio there. Good morning Stewart.
STEWART JACKSON: Good morning Chris.
CHRIS MANN: Who’s fault is all this?
Continue reading “Hinchingbrooke Hospital franchise experiment – apportioning the blame”

Stewart Jackson on Grant Shapps

13:33 Monday 16th March 2015
BBC Radio 4

MARTHA KEARNEY: The Conservative Party Chairman has admitted today that in his own words he “screwed up” over his past business activities. Grants Shapps has faced criticism in the past for using the pseudonym Michael Green as part of his marketing company, which offered advice on how to make money. Michael Green was supposedly a successful businessman. Grant Shapps told LBC three weeks ago this is all before he became an MP.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: I thought the discussion here was second jobs whilst people are MPs. So to be absolutely clear, I don’t have a second job, and have never had a second job whilst being an MP. End of story.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: But today’s Guardian has released a recording of Grant Shapps described as having been made in 2006, in which he is posing as Michael Green. This is part of the recording.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: I think we’re suggesting if people are listening to this pretty currently, and we’re in the Summer of 2006 whilst we’re recording, a great timescale would be to use the profit diary techniques to make a ton of cash by Christmas.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So the business How To Corp. was still running in the year after he became an MP. This confusion has emerged in other public comments too. When I interviewed Grant Shapps two years ago, he offered this explanation.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: Just so your readers are clear, before I went into politics I used to run a printing company and I also set up a publishing company, and I think sensibly just to keep it separate from politics, I published under a brand name, under a pen name, like any ..
MARTHA KEARNEY: Michael Green.
GRANT SHAPPS: Michael Green.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So there Grant Shapps was saying that the pseudonym was used before he went into politics. But later in the same interview ..
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: Just to be clear that the business is actually closed. I haven’t been involved with it for nearly four and a half years. And the business is closed so it’s a really very old, very very old story.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So there Grant Shapps admits that the business was still running in 2007, two years after he became an MP. The Guardian has published a letter from his lawyers in November which reads: “Mr Shapps MP has at no time misled over the use of a pen name. Indeed I now understand that he openly published his full name alongside business publications, making it clear that he used a pen name merely to separate business and politics, prior to entering Parliament.” In fact How To Corp. which was set up in 2000 was registered at Companies House in 2005, the year of the election. All of this had led to Grant Shapps apology today. He told the BBC he had ” screwed up”, by denying he had a second job while an MP. Mr Shapps said he responded over-firmly at interview on LBC. Labour wants an immediate enquiry into his conduct to establish all the facts in the interests of the public. David Cameron’s official spokesman said this morning, “The Prime Minister has full confidence in Grant Shapps.” We approached the Conservative party for an interview with Grant Shapps but he wasn’t available. They suggested we speak to Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP for Peterborough, and a Member of the Public Accounts Committee. This is an unfortunate position, isn’t it, to say the least, to have your party chairman admitting that he “screwed up” so close to an election.
Continue reading “Stewart Jackson on Grant Shapps”

Peterborough PFI dispute delays radiotherapy unit

17:10 Friday 6th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: A legal wrangle is being blamed for a year-long delay in completing work on a vital new £5 million unit to help fight cancer. The radiotherapy unit at Peterborough City Hospital is now 12 months behind schedule, because of a dispute over the original PFI financial deal. Agency staff are being hired to cope with the workload at an extra cost to the already cash-strapped Trust. However, Trust officials say they cannot calculate the extra cost. Well to get a view on this I was joined earlier on by Peterborough’s MP Stewart Jackson.
(TAPE)
STEWART JACKSON: I’m very disappointed Chris, not least because like everyone else in Peterborough and particularly the healthcare professionals, I was delighted when the Government awarded extra funding for what is an extremely important cause, which is this particular unit. And the fact is that this is having impact on clinical work, and it’s making patients wait longer. And that can’t be right. So I’m asking the Trust and the contractors to get together and see if they can resolve this very pressing issue.
Continue reading “Peterborough PFI dispute delays radiotherapy unit”

UKIP targets Peterborough

10:41 Monday 1st December 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: UKIP have been putting the finishing touches to their list of candidates for the next General Election. The South Cambs branch appointed Deborah Rennie out of a shortlist of four on Saturday night, and in Peterborough Mary Herdman was selected as the candidate to fight for Stewart Jackson’s seat. Peterborough will surely be a target for Nigel Farage’s party. We talked to UKIP last week and we heard Stewart Jackson saying, ‘why stand when my views are almost in line with yours?’. In fact when we spoke to Stewart he was almost begging the party not to field a candidate in Peterborough. Well their candidate joins us now. Mary good morning.
MARY HERDMAN: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Why stand? Why split the vote?
MARY HERDMAN: We won’t be splitting the vote. If you vote for UKIP you will get UKIP.
PAUL STAINTON: You’ll get Miliband they say if you vote for you.
MARY HERDMAN: No no. Definitely not Paul. If we can get MPs in a lot of seats throughout Britain, if you vote UKIP you will get UKIP. And we need UKIP in the Government.
PAUL STAINTON: Alright. Run through a list of policies then Mary that you’re going to be standing on.
Continue reading “UKIP targets Peterborough”