Greg's Local Campaigns

Greg is campaigning hard on local issues and local concerns. When was the last time you heard the local Labour MP speak up for our area on local issues?

Saving Our Post Offices

Greg has been actively involved with the campaign to save local Post Offices, and led efforts to reopen Newton Road Post Office in High Heaton, which is now back in service after months of being closed. He also led the campaign to save St Anthony's Post Office which was cruelly added to the Royal Mail closure programme at the last minute. Unfortunately Labour's MP for Newcastle East voted for the closure programme , also leading to the loss of branches in Clayton Rd , Jesmond, St Ann's / Battlefield, the University, and Walkerville.

Effective Action Against Crime

Greg meets regularly with local police commanders to discuss issues of local concern, including anti social behaviour in Byker, seeking to introduce CCTV cameras to prevent crime and unruly behaviour in the Osborne Road / Osborne Avenue areas, and teen drinking and disorder in Haydon Grange / Victoria Glade. Whilst out on patrol with the local police inspector recently Greg took part in a 999 callout which detained a burglar in the Avenues in Heaton. He is calling for the police authority to publish "crime maps" giving residents more information on local prevalence of crime to help combat fear of crime and to allow a targeted response. Greg is also campaigning against the Labour-controlled police authority's decision to slash injury-related pensions for officers injured on duty.

Supporting Students

Newcastle East has one of the highest populations of students of any constituency in the country. Greg is backing efforts to increase suitable purpose-built student accommodation to reduce the strain on existing rented properties in residential areas, in order to create a sustainable balance between students and long term residents. He is also backing the Lib Dem campaign to scrap tuition fees, which hit thousands of students in Newcastle East - and local families with children at university elsewhere - very hard. Once again, Labour's MP for Newcastle East voted in favour of tuition fees, putting the interests of the Labour government before the interests of local residents.

Protecting Our Local Environment

Greg is supporting local environmental initiatives such as the campaign to create additional allotment provision, improve Exhibition Park , the Lottery-funded project to renovate Jesmond Dene to its Victorian heyday, and to designate "Heaton Square" (area between Coast Road , Chillingham Road , Cartington Terrace, and Heaton Road ) as a conservation area. He is a member and supporter of the Friends of Paddy Freemans Park and the Friends of Iris Brickfield groups. He has also campaigned to ensure that Byker incinerator is never reopened, and helped to deliver massively improved kerbside recycling across the constituency - he wants to see the brown bin garden recycling scheme extended to remaining areas that aren't yet covered.

Housing and Regeneration

Greg has a passionate interest in regeneration and has been closely involved in projects including Walker Riverside and developing a proposal to secure millions of pounds in investment in refurbishing the Byker Wall estate. He is also supporting the Lib Dem council's plans to build hundreds of new council houses across the city - the first for many years.

Greg is also committed to introducing more powers to ensure a sustainable balance between existing residential communities and private rented sector student let housing. If elected as MP Greg will seek to raise this issue in Parliament and is campaigning for new legislation to require "change of use class" planning permission for conversion of homes to student lets. He supports the need to provide more suitably managed purpose-built student accommodation, along with more powers to regulate existing private sector student properties. Local Labour MPs have opposed this and have done nothing to tackle student housing problems.

Public Transport

As a member of the Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Authority Greg has campaigned for more investment in Byker and Chillingham Road metro stations to make them safer and more user-friendly. He wants to see funding from development of the Fossway sites including the proposed Newcastle College sustainable construction centre used to upgrade Chillingham Road station

Greg is also campaigning for restoration of north-south bus links on the routes of the former 3 and 49 services via Walker , Heaton, Cochrane Park , and the Freeman Hospital , and has backed Jesmond Lib Dem colleagues in their campaign to safeguard the Stagecoach 33 service, but is opposing Labour's proposal to cut bus stops on the 1 super-route.

Greg is also backing the Lib Dem campaign to upgrade the Haddricksmill / Benton Park Road junction to improve this congestion bottleneck, and wants to see more done to develop a park and ride facility for the east of the city and North Tyneside to cut congestion on the A1058 Coast Road .

Economic Development

Greg has campaigned with North East Lib Dem Euro MP Fiona Hall to lobby the Government to do more to support the development of a "renewable energy manufacturing base" as an extension of the Walker Offshore Park on the Tyne shipyards. He has worked with local industry to help to secure the Neptune yard site as a location for a new wind turbine manufacturing factory, and wants to see more done to expand the potential of this cluster as a source of hundreds of engineering jobs in the East End .

Greg is also supporting the development of a renewable energy and sustainable construction centre for Newcastle College on the former Siemens site on the Fossway - despite the Government's shambolic management of college funding.

Through his work as chair of Newcastle Futures, Greg has also worked to help get hundreds of people in Newcastle East into work, often for the first time. Greg has actively supported plans for new jobs at Science City and through the acquisition of Northern Rock House - Labour has opposed them.

Finally, Greg is concerned about the impact of the Government's plans to cut student numbers and reduce funding to the two Universities in the constituency, which play a vital role in the local economy.