Lee Anderson proud to help get Brexit done on behalf of Ashfield

It is hard to express in words how it felt inside as the person responsible for voting on behalf of Ashfield.

It’s not long ago that I was just an ordinary member of the public from Ashfield who was sat there screaming at MPs on TV debating Brexit.

But British democracy is a wonderful thing.

It allowed me, just an ordinary working-class bloke from Huthwaite to stand for Parliament and get elected to speak up on behalf of Ashfield and I will speak up for you all every day I am in Westminster.

But now the time is for healing.

The country has been divided on the issue for the past five years and its time to move on and come together.

Last week the UK surpassed the million mark on Covid vaccinations – we have vaccinated more people than the rest of Europe put together.

This is a phenomenal achievement by our brilliant NHS who have been magnificent throughout.

The quicker we roll out the vaccinations then the quicker we can get back to normal because we are all fed up now.

I hear some people say the vaccine is not safe and MPs should be made to have it first so let me say that if I was offered the vaccine tomorrow, I will roll my sleeve up and take it.

I would then probably be accused of queue jumping but hey, dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.

Over the past 12 months I have spent many hours travelling the constituency with highways team members from Nottinghamshire County Council to discuss the state of our roads.

After working with the council, I am pleased to see the scheduled works for this year which will see many of our roads resurfaced throughout Ashfield.

This is welcome news and something that I will continue to highlight with County Hall.

Finally, you will all know that I have been working hard with Government to ensure Ashfield District Council (ADC) got £6.2 million to invest in Sutton from the Future High Streets Fund.

Now, there has been some controversy locally about how the money was secured so to put the record straight ADC’s original bid was turned down but after I met with the Secretary of State he agreed that it should be included in the second tranche.

I then worked with ADC and other stakeholders to ensure we had a robust bid in place.

This was then sent to Government where I once again met with ministers to argue that Ashfield deserved this cash.

Some local politicians have said this is sweetener just to keep me in a job, but if the Government wants to keep throwing millions at Ashfield, then I will take it every day of the week.

Happy new year.

Lee Anderson is MP for Ashfield.