Last week on the morning of the 11th February, South Western Railway announced that their January 17th timetable will finally be scrapped, and with the new timetable taking effect from the 21st February being almost identical to their December 2021 timetable.

This, I know, will come as a huge relief to the many people who have contacted me expressing how much this has affected their daily lives and I hope this is the first of many steps to take to restore the trust of commuters and providing a service that is fit for our region.

Last week in Parliament, it was a busy week in the House of Commons making the case for Dorset to have its fair share on a number of fronts. I spoke about the unacceptably long waiting times for ambulances in West Dorset and throughout the South West. There are many reasons for this, but I believed it to be worth scrutinising.

When talking about ambulance response times, I took the opportunity to talk about the St John Ambulance and it’s wonderful base of staff who so ably supported the NHS during covid. I thought they did such a good job that St John Ambulance should be recognised properly for its work and for its capability to be a strategic back up resource.

I was at Barnes Cross near Holwell last Friday, giving the oldest working Post Box in the UK a clean and tidy-up. I was very active as a local Councillor for the Cam Vale ward back in 2013/14 when I succeeded in getting the box, (installed in 1853, in the earlier years of Queen Victoria’s reign!) fully restored to its former glory. 8 years on, the box had started once again to look in need of some TLC, so I was only too pleased to don a sponge and dishcloth and give it a clean-up.

CHRIS LODER

WEST DORSET MP