Intouch April 2024

Dear Chelmsford neighbour, 

It’s the last Friday of the month – and the moment you have been waiting for! Welcome to my monthly update on what I’ve been up to in April. 

Keeping Chelmsford Safe

I spent much of the parliamentary recess out and about knocking on doors listening to local residents with Roger Hirst, our Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. Thank you to everyone who took time to talk. 

Thank you to the many hundreds of Chelmsford local residents who have completed my Safety and Crime Survey. Here are some of the key things people are saying:

• They want police to prioritise reducing anti-social behaviour, drug related crime, theft and burglary as well as knife crime.
• Chelmsford is safe. Three quarters of those that responded said that neither they nor their family members have experienced crime themselves.  A large majority of people scored Chelmsford 7/10 or higher for “feeling safe”.
• When asked what two actions they wanted the police to deliver 58% of people said more foot patrols, 34% said more CCTV cameras.
• A number of individual different locations around Chelmsford were mentioned by residents.  I met with our local district commander yesterday to go through each of these areas in detail with him.
• Concerns about car theft were raised. Please see below for more on what is being done to tackle this.

Photo Below: Vicky Ford MP meeting with District Commander Ballard at Chelmsford Police Station.

More Police. Police officer numbers are now at the highest levels in the 185-year history of Essex Police. Under the stewardship of our Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Roger Hirst, 905 additional officers have been added to Essex Police.

Crime Dropping. In Essex, last year total crime was down by 6% and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) was down by 38%. Since 2016 ASB has dropped by 70%, murder and burglary are both down by over 40%. The most recent data from our local police show that crime has dropped in the past year in Chelmsford, with ASB down by over a quarter. Knife crime dropped by 11.7% in Chelmsford last year. 

There is more to do. 

Please do not forget to vote on Thursday 2 May. Roger Hirst has set out a detailed plan to reduce crime further. You can read it here. The Commissioner role is an important one for our safety and It is very clear that other candidates do not have a plan.

If you have not filled in my survey and would like to do so, then please click on this link – it takes just two minutes. Your feedback is invaluable and will help to keep Chelmsford safe.

Keeping Britain Safe

This week I joined a meeting with the Defence Secretary to discuss the Government’s commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.

I have been saying for a long time that the world is increasingly becoming a more dangerous place and protecting our national security must always be a top priority. 

This announcement by the UK will sent a new benchmark for NATO and help to keep our country safe. 

 Supporting Children With Special Educational Needs

I have been focusing on improving services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Essex. I met with the leader of Essex County Council and with the Head of Education and Cabinet member responsible. 

Photo Below: Meeting with Cllr Tony Ball & Cllr Kevin Bentley & Clare Kershaw at Essex County Council.

In Essex, the services for children needing help from social care are amongst the very best in the country, and they have recently been graded as “outstanding” by Ofsted for the second time in the row. This includes support for adoptive families, children in care including foster care, and children at risk. 

However, the services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Essex needs to improve. 

There has been a great increase in the level of need with more children presenting with SEND than ever before. This is partly because of advances in medical care for those with severed disabilities, partly because we know more about special education needs than previously and partly because of the impact of the pandemic on children. Government funding for SEND needs has increased by 60% over the past five years.

We discussed the plan to improve SEND services in Chelmsford. This

46 additional members of staff have been recruited and additional external expertise is being brough on board to process Education Health and Care Plans more quickly and reduce the backlog.

Four New Special “Free” Schools are being built in Essex. These are state funded schools. two new special schools are currently being built in Chelmsford. 

Increase the number of Specialist Hubs in Mainstream Schools.  I have seen very successful hubs like the Grow Unit at Newlands Spring.  The Government has allocated £20 million of capital funding for SEND needs in Essex which can be sued for more of these hubs.

Improving our NHS

I recently asked for some data so I could see how our local GP services compared to pre -pandemic levels. In the Chelmsford constituency, there were 40 more full-time-equivalent direct patient care staff working in general practice than there were in September 2019.

I met with one of our busiest GP practices to see first-hand how they are using new online services to communicate more quickly with their patients and make sure that patients get to see the medical specialist that most meets their needs. Fifteen local pharmacies in Chelmsford have signed up to the new Pharmacy First Service.

I joined MPs from across Essex for a major meeting at Basildon Hospital with NHS bosses, including the heads of our hospital trust, mental health trust, ambulance service and the integrated care service. Waiting lists at our local hospitals have reduced significantly, including Broomfield. Key targets, like the time for people to start cancer treatment are also much better than last year. 

The ambulance service has improved dramatically, waiting times and turnaround times at hospital A&E are considerably lower than previously, despite a significant increase in demand for ambulances. 

The provision of NHS dentistry has also increased. Nearly 2 million NHS funded dentist treatments are available in Mid and South Essex this year and 199 dental practices are signed up to deliver them.  

Whilst I was at the hospital, I visited the new 24/7 mental health urgent care department. This very successful service supported around 2,000 urgent mental health patients in its first year of operations, including a number from the Chelmsford area.    

Under Lock and Key

I visited Chelmsford Prison with Basildon MP, Stephen Metcalfe. The prisoner numbers are high, partly because our local police have been doing a good job catching criminals. Over recent years, I have helped secure improvements in security for the prison including new body scanners and measures to prevent drugs being thrown over the prison wall. These have helped to keep neighbours, including the nearby school safe. I have always focused on safety of prison staff which has been a issue in the past. On this visit, I was impressed by the positive feedback from staff. It was clear that staff morale has improved.

Photo Below: Vicky Ford MP & Stephen Metcalfe MP, visiting HMP & YOI Chelmsford.

Delivering Affordable, Secure and Clean Electricity

I joined three other members of the Energy Security and Next Zero to see Hinkley Point C in Somerset. This is Europe’s largest building site and the first nuclear power station to be built in the UK for 30 years. It will produce enough electricity for 6 million homes. Eleven thousand people are currently working on site. The is part of a detailed inquiry the committee is doing on delivering our long-term energy needs.

Walking around the massive site, we discussed the logistics of delivering this hugely complex project as well as nuclear safety, environmental issues, skills and training, costs and construction methods. We also visited its neighbour Hinkley B, which is now being decommissioned at the end of its forty-six-year life. Delivering a new generation of nuclear power will be crucial for our future energy requirements. We also visited the UKs first deep geothermal plant in Cornwall and a remote off-gas community pioneering use of Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil. 

I think serving on a select committee is one of the most important things a backbench Member of Parliament can do. MPs are elected onto committees by their peers. I am honoured to also serve on the Education Select Committee.

Photo Below: Members of the Energy, Security & Net Zero Committee at Hinkley Point C in Somerset.

                                       Keeping Children Safe

In the House of Commons, I spoke in the Chamber about Children’s Online Safety. There have been increasing calls for child safe phones. I am considering introducing a new law via a private members bill to help make this happen. I would be interested in the views of parents and young people. 

I also spoke in the debate on Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Its measures are largely directed at protecting children and young people. I therefore wrote to all the secondary schools in Chelmsford to ask their views. The young people sent me extremely detailed thoughts and had looked into a wide range of issues of the proposed policy. They did not all agree, but having gone through all the pros and cons, the majority of them backed the proposals and gave compelling reasons for it.

I am always wary of introducing new bans on products, as personal choice and freedom should be treasured, However, given the compelling arguments set out by the young people of Chelmsford, and the fact that it is young people who will be affected by this, I voted for the Bill.

Car Theft

Roger Hirst and I held two local meetings for residents in areas which have recently experienced car theft.  

Tackling car theft has now been made one of Essex Police’s main priorities. They have a dedicated team within the serious crime unit and also a specialist stolen vehicle intelligence unit. Automated Number Plate Recognition technology has been increased and the police now use state of the art technology to interpret video evidence from people’s CCTV and doorbell cameras. 

The police have recovered over 650 vehicles worth more than £14 million, including recovering 40 vehicles last week alone.

Cars are usually stolen in the early hours of the morning and are often driven rapidly towards the south Essex ports to be sold overseas. En-route the cars are taken to “chop shops” where they can be broken into parts. 

Essex police have uncovered and shut down 34 of these chop shops. Thieves have been particularly targeting Range Rovers and Fords. There have been many arrests, but more still needs to be done – and will be done.

The cars are usually stolen without using people’s keys. Thieves use digital scanners to copy the wireless signal from the vehicle owner’s car keys. These scanners are soon to be made illegal under new laws passing through Parliament. This will help to disrupt this criminal activity.

There are measures you can take to help protect your vehicle. These include deactivating passive entry systems, locking gates or using a “sleeping fob” battery in your car keys – this stops the key sending out an electronic signal when it is stationary. 

Some people have also installed bollards on their drives. Keep your keys in a faraday bag or tin and, if you have space, consider parking a less valuable car in front of the one that thieves might target. All of these help to deter the thieves.

Please do report any suspicious behaviour to the police and share any evidence you have with the police. This intelligence is vital to the police and has been a major help in building a picture of activity. This helps the police to target criminals and make arrests.

If you have other suggestions for actions that could be taken to beat the car thieves, please do email me or Roger. We are determined that this must be addressed.  

Photo Below: Vicky Ford MP & Roger Hirst (PFCC) meet with local residents in Springfield.

And Finally,

It was a delight to pop down to the county cricket ground for the first ball of the new season. Essex Cricket Men’s team have won two of their opening games and top the table. Essex has also just been successful in our bid to host one of the eight Tier One professional women’s teams.   

I have helped the club extensively over recent years as a volunteer, unpaid member of the board. I have helped recruit new board members and developed plans to improve the ground, and deliver new safeguards. 

Essex Cricket undoubtedly the best performing county in the country especially when one looks at all the different formats, the achievements of the ability and women’s teams as well the men’s teams. They also do a huge amount of work in the community across the East of England and in East London. There are exciting plans ahead. We are so lucky to have them in Chelmsford. 

As ever please do email me if you have issues or feedback. 

With best wishes,

Vicky.