By Jerome Mayhew MP

I have been working closely with the University of East Anglia to build momentum behind a campaign for a new dental school here in East Anglia.

Dentistry in Norfolk has, historically, been very poor in comparison to other parts of the country and one of the primary reasons for that is the lack of a nearby training facility that enables us to recruit and retain dentists in the county.

Therefore, I was delighted to have secured an adjournment debate in order to put these plans forward. I was not expecting an immediate “yes” from the department and was encouraged that the Minister recognised the strength of the argument, and that we should keep on talking.

Taking him at his word I raised my campaign face to face with both the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister. The higher the profile of our cause the higher the chances of new investment.

Norwich Western Link consultation

I was very pleased to attend the Norwich Western Link consultation in Weston Longville. While out doing “village visits” and talking to residents, the missing link road was one of issues most frequently raised with me.

It is vital that we build this road to stop the terrible rat running that villages currently endure, improving access to markets for swathes of Norfolk businesses and knocking 20 minutes off ambulance response times to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

I fed in my views to the consultations and look forward to the plans being finessed in response to all the useful feedback locals have given to the team.

Thank you to all who took part in the consultation and raised your views, or concerns, about the proposed project. The county council will now be reviewing all of these and will then be in a position to update us all in due course.

Signing books of condolence in Broadland

Following the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I was moved and honoured to have taken part in both local and national events in memory of the late Queen on behalf of residents across Broadland.

Locally, I visited many of the churches and community centres in Broadland to sign their respective books of condolence and took time to read through many of the letters written by residents.

Her Majesty’s death had a profound impact on our communities and her legacy will live on in all of our hearts.

One of the great strengths of our unwritten constitution is the seamless transition of authority at the death of the monarch. That said, I am still getting used to saying “God Save the King”.

As ever, if there is anything I can help you with, please do get in touch via email. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or via my website.

Jerome Mayhew, Member of Parliament for Broadland

By Jerome Mayhew MP

Now that the weather has finally warmed up, the natural environment is even more apparent to us.

Nature looks wonderful at this time of year, with the verges bursting with cow parsley and the young leaves on the trees showing acid green.

But all is not well. Biodiversity – the variety of plant and animal life – in the UK has been in significant decline for decades.

To put that into perspective, for those of us aged 40+, do you remember how many bugs used to get squashed on a car windscreen when you were a child? What about now?

That reduction in abundance of nature should worry us all since it is happening right across the globe. The world has lost two thirds of its wildlife in the past 50 years – during my lifetime.

It is vitally important that we stop the decline in biodiversity loss here in the UK, and then reverse it.

Change in farming practices

To achieve this our farming practices are going to change dramatically over the next 10 years.

Instead of being encouraged by EU subsidies to focus on the volume of food produced over all other considerations, farmers are now going to be paid by taxpayers to protect and enhance the environment.

The government will no longer subsidise production or just give money to farmers based on their acreage.

Instead, taxpayers’ money will be spent on improvements to nature and the environment via the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS).

More of us should be able to enjoy our countryside, too. We are blessed with a network of public footpaths right across the country.

But it would be even better if we could agree with farmers to have additional access to the countryside. Under ELMS, it will be possible to pay farmers to open up new routes.

In anticipation of this I have been working with Norfolk County Council to build up a map of missing links in our great patchwork of footpaths.

Regenerative agriculture

It is not just subsidies that are going to change our farming, but the technology of farming itself.

Dynamic arable farmers are discovering that soil health, rather than chemical inputs, is at the heart of healthy, profitable farms.

Loosely described as “regenerative agriculture” the new focus on reducing soil disturbance and maximising carbon content in our soils reduces the need for expensive chemicals to farmers while maintaining good yields.

Better still for the rest of us, it improves habitats for increased biodiversity and abundance and has the potential to make our fields a massive store for carbon: increase the carbon content of soil by just 0.1% and you lock away 9 tonnes of carbon in every hectare.

We need to tackle this internationally as well as locally. In November, the UK is going to host the COP26 conference of 190 world leaders in Glasgow.

A key priority will be to finalise the Paris Rulebook – the detailed rules that make the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, a reality. Plans to tackle biodiversity loss with be at the heart of this negotiation.

Local attractions

It was a privilege to visit so many of our great attractions and businesses as part of English Tourism Week. It was good to see so many visitors to Broadland, particularly over the Bank Holiday.

Visit England is encouraging us all – residents and visitors alike – to explore our wonderful area and find our own ways to “Escape the Everyday”.

Essential services

Finally, following the closure of Coltishall’s Wroxham Road Post Office earlier this year, a new mobile service will be launched on 21 June.

I want our villages and rural areas to continue to be served properly with essential services like these, so please do get in touch if you have any comments to make on this new facility.

If there is anything I can help you with, please do get in touch via email. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via my website.

Jerome Mayhew, MP for Broadland

We have got used to the feeling that Norfolk has a very low infection rate of Covid-19 and I fear that this is leading us into a false sense of security.

While it’s true that the East of England as a whole has lagged most of the rest of the country in rates of infection, this time round we are seeing growing transmission in our community in a way that we have not seen before.

At the time of writing, Broadland has an infection rate of around 150 per 100,000 population and rising.

Rates of infection in North Norfolk are much lower, but with a typically more vulnerable population.

We cannot be complacent: if we want to be able to open shops and maintain livelihoods in the run up to Christmas, while not overloading our hospitals, we must do all we can to make the Covid-19 restrictions work.

Without all of us choosing to stick to the rules there is a risk that we will end up with another spike of infections in early January. It is in our hands to prevent this.

Like many of us, I have been enormously encouraged by the new vaccines; there is every reason to be hopeful for the future.

With increasing light ahead we still need to stick together to get through this winter, protecting each other and ourselves.

We can do it by maintaining our vigilance, not mixing with other families, however tempting, and keeping to the “hands, face, space” mantra.

Vaccinations will begin later in December for the most vulnerable and those on the frontline, with a rapid rollout to other groups during January and February.

As our thoughts turn towards Christmas, I was delighted to give Sophie and Isabel, both from Taverham, winner and runner-up certificates for my Christmas card competition.

Their wonderful drawings have been made into my Christmas card and will be delivered to hundreds of families over the next few weeks.

I don’t know what Christmas is going to look like this year.

In my family, if the to-do list feels sufficiently under control to be able to attend midnight mass then you know that you are ahead of the game.

Too often, cooking, last-minute wrapping and tidying mean that I miss it; this year it may have to be different.

But, whatever restrictions on our lives come Christmas Day, I will try to remember how lucky I am when compared to a young family, away from home, sheltering in a shed in Bethlehem.

However we celebrate this year, happy Christmas!

As ever, if I can help you with any issue or concern, please do email. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via my website.

Jerome Mayhew, MP for Broadland

I hope you have had an enjoyable summer and were able to take advantage of the superb weather during August.

It has certainly been a busy time for local businesses, with a hugely welcome upturn in tourism and recreation.

In Broadland, 82,000 claims were made under the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, benefiting our pubs and restaurants by just under £500,000 and it really seemed to build confidence that we can go out and use local resources in a low-risk way.

The way in which our schools have been able to return to proper education has been another positive milestone. With three children of my own, I well know the benefit they are getting being properly back at school.

Teachers have put a huge amount of thought and planning into making the system work, again in a low-risk way, and deserve our full support with the new way of doing things.

Over the summer recess, I visited many people around the constituency, helping out where I could and seeing how businesses and communities have been responding to the challenge of Covid-19.

I have also been talking to care home managers and staff around Broadland to learn from their experiences first-hand. We have learned so much and it is vital that these lessons inform our ongoing response.

Set against these positive signs of progress has been the local Covid-19 outbreak at Banham Poultry (well-controlled at the time of writing) and the wider upward trend of Covid infections across the country, resulting in the reintroduction of the “rule of six” restrictions.

Some people have argued that this is an overreaction given the very low death rate. But I am afraid that international experience shows that widespread infection in the younger population cannot be stopped from spreading to the more vulnerable over time.

You cannot successfully divide our community into two, even if you wanted to, so we need to suppress this infection growth and we all have our role to play, whatever our age.

Broadland residents have shown remarkable public spirit, as you would expect, and I am sure that we will continue to do so.

As ever, if I can help you with any issue or concern, please do email. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via my website.

Jerome Mayhew, MP for Broadland