The glorious June weather has finally arrived, and it was a pleasure to be driving around the north and west of the constituency last week for my Friday visits.
RJB Forklifts is a fabulous local company just outside Abridge which provides forklift training and certification to around 500 trainees per year. In this age of huge warehouses – this Amazon, Tescos, Ocado and the like – someone with a Warehouse and Storage Level 1 and Counterbalance Level 2 certificate is very employable.
Richard Lamey runs the company, and prides himself of the way in which he and his staff get their trainees ‘work-ready’; they’re hot on time-keeping and appropriate behaviour in the workplace and have seen thousands of young people move on into work in all sectors over the years.
Over in Moreton, I was very pleased to catch up with the new Chair and Vice Chair of the Moreton, Bobbingworth and the Lavers Parish Council, Ewen Crosbie and Andy Stuart who wanted to bring my attention to potholes, and traffic calming.
My final visit of the day was to Moreton Primary School, which is a wonderful local primary school which has welcomed some of the Ukrainian and Afghan refugees who have come to the UK after having to flee their own countries. The young children who have had such terrible reasons for having to leave their homes have been integrated into the school with great excitement. The school’s Head Boy and Head Girl were very proud to tell me how the new children speak wonderful English already and are working very hard on their English reading and writing.
It was joyful to hear how the pupils had embraced their new peers, and a lesson in simple acceptance of people from different cultures in the more rural parts of this wonderful constituency.
