March 11th, 2010
After the welcomed response by local residents to the change to the 58 service, which now stops at Coldharbour roundabout, Dr Sue Farrant has concerns about the impact this has now had on people in the Newland/Oborne Road area.
Dr Farrant has contacted First buses with a proposal to re-route the 57 bus service to run eastwards down Newland, stopping outside the Newland flats and turning right into Long Street.
In February, she sent out a survey to the local residents and several replied that they had been significantly affected by the change.
In proposing the re-routing plan, Dr Farrant said: “This would at least help people to get into Sherborne from where they could connect with the 58 service if they wanted to go to Yeovil or Wincanton.”
Dr Farrant has also raised the matter of ticket prices between Sherborne and Yeovil. Currently, a single ticket is priced at £3.55 and a return at £6.40 (peak) or £5.70 (off peak). She has asked First to explain how they arrived at these fares and how they compare to journeys of a similar length.
She has also asked them to consider reducing the ticket price for a pilot period to see if it encourages people to travel.
March 8th, 2010
Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset attended the launch of aid agency Concern Worldwide’s Women Can’t Wait campaign, which is calling on the UN and world leaders to act now to support poor women across the developing world in their fight against hunger before it is too late.
The campaign was launched on Monday 8 March 2010 at a VIP reception in the House of Lords to mark International Women’s Day, with moving speeches from Ms Phoebe Asiyo, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador from Kenya and Baroness Nuala O’Loan DBE.
The speeches and powerful film footage of women in Africa telling their stories of hardship, all drew attention to the fact that, despite commitments made by world leaders in 2000 to ‘end poverty by 2015’, for the first time in human history there are over a billion people going to bed hungry every night and the majority of these are women.
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February 16th, 2010
Head boy of Woodroffe School makes a point to Nick Harvey MP and Sue Farrant
Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary calls for Veterans Charter and warns that the future of the RAF is in doubt
Nick Harvey, MP for North Devon and Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary was in West Dorset last Friday to meet Dr Sue Farrant, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate. They share an interest in defence issues and are both active campaigners for the welfare of servicemen and women and for veterans.
During the afternoon, they held a question and answer session with sixth formers at the Woodroffe School, Lyme Regis. Some of the students are members of the School’s Combined Cadet Force. Sue Farrant said afterwards, “We were both very impressed with the interest shown by the sixth formers and by their willingness to ask challenging questions. The discussion was wide ranging and included the nuclear deterrent, the Iraq War, bankers’ pay and higher education”.
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February 16th, 2010
Tree planting in Dorchester
Sue Farrant supports Dorchester and Weymouth Greenpeace as they plant a Cox’s Orange Pippin alongside the allotments at Riverside Walk. The Dorchester tree is twinned with one at Sipson, birthplace of the Cox’s Orange Pippin and now the proposed site for the Heathrow third runway. Sue has become one of 60,000 beneficial owners of ‘Airplot’ a parcel of land at Sipson ow planted with trees as a symbol of opposition to the runway.
January 22nd, 2010
Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset, visited Poundbury and Maiden Castle at the invitation of the Poundbury Rural Access Campaign headed by Peter Evans. Mr Evans explained that the Duchy of Cornwall’s plans for the further development of Poundbury did not include the rural access to Maiden Castle under the Dorchester bypass envisaged in the 2006 Poundbury Development Brief. Instead the Duchy were proposing a convoluted route alongside the bypass to an existing footpath to the north west of Maiden Castle or funnelling residents along the inside of the bypass to Maiden Castle Road.
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January 19th, 2010
Dorchester's New Chairman David Taylor
Dear all Lib Democrat Supporters’
Well, a Happy New Year and decade – this looks to be a good time for us all.
This news letter is by way of introducing myself, David Taylor, as your new chairman for the Liberal Democrats Group for Dorchester and surrounding areas.
I was born in Sherborne, Dorset and now live and work in Dorchester.
My main objective is to rally and steer all our teams and colleagues together so that we can collectively get Dr Sue Farrant elected as our MP for West Dorset into Parliament at the next general election.
A key date for our diaries is Saturday Jan 23rd when we’re meeting in the morning to discuss “How to Win the General Election” and in the afternoon we’ll be undertaking residents surveys all across the town.
Recently I went into the Tom Browns pub and asked the Landlord Jamie Pinnow, if he would mind if we could meet up on the first Wednesday of each month so we could have a social chat be it very informal. He was delighted and hence our great saying “we birds of a feather can now flock together” first meeting Wed 3rd Feb @ 7.00pm all welcome I will be there.
If anyone would like to contact me by E-Mail the address is
david@dorchester63.freeserve.co.uk
And my home address is 4 Normandy Way, Dorchester, DT1 2PP
Tel 01305 263382
Once again Happy New Year 2010.
Regards David Taylor
January 16th, 2010
Sue Farrant and local campaigners fight for safer roads
Dorset has one of the highest road casualty rates in Britain.
Liberal Democrats say that Dorset County Council must take road safety much more seriously. Dr Sue Farrant and local campaigners are demanding that the public should be consulted on steps like putting back the white lines on the Bridport to Weymouth coast road, introducing more pedestrian crossings and traffic calming and 20 mph limits in residential areas.
The Liberal Democrats say that local people with worries about safety and traffic speed should be asked what they think should be done to make their roads safer.
“The Conservatives must listen to local people as they know best how to cut the terrible accident rate. It’s no good thinking that one solution will fit everywhere, we need different solutions for different places”, said Dr Sue Farrant.
January 15th, 2010
Local Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate Dr Sue Farrant has been travelling around West Dorset with a giant cheque, meeting local residents to show them how much the average person would save under Liberal Democrat tax policies.
Under the proposed tax policies, no one will have to pay tax on the first £10,000 of their income. This will save the average tax payer £700 each. Homes with two workers could be up to £1400 a year better off.
These tax cuts will be paid for by measures including closing tax loopholes exploited by the rich, taxes on pollution and a new levy on houses worth more than £2 million.
Dr Sue Farrant says, “Ordinary people are paying far more than their fair share while the rich pay less than they should. Our plan will put money back into the pockets of those who need it most, pensioners and working people on low incomes.”
The Liberal Democrat plan to help local people couldn’t be more different to the Conservative’s plan to cut inheritance tax for the wealthiest 2 per cent.
Dr Sue Farrant says, “It shows the Conservatives haven’t really changed. They are much more concerned about the wealthy few than about ordinary people.”
January 15th, 2010
The Liberal Democrats have announced how they would bring a quarter of a million empty homes back into use, making homes available for people who need them and creating 65,000 jobs.
There are 906 empty homes in West Dorset. Many of these properties can be brought back into use with some investment. Under Liberal Democrat proposals, people who own these homes will get a grant or a low cost loan to renovate them so they can be used.
Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset, believes that the shortage of housing for local people is one of the most important issues facing the area. “There are currently 2,342 people on West Dorset District Council’s housing register waiting for homes and 906 houses and flats standing empty,” she said, “A great many local people have already had to leave the area because they can’t find anywhere to live at a price they can afford.
“We need to find ways to encourage the owners of these empty properties to bring them up to a good standard and then rent them out. That way, the owners get an income and someone gets a home.”
Dr Farrant, who works in social housing says that building a new house costs on average ten times more than renovating an existing property. Bringing empty homes back into use will help local people to stay near their families and to take up local jobs, will give a boost to the hard-hit construction industry and is more environmentally friendly than new-build.
December 18th, 2009
Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset Liberal Democrats has responded to the DCH Recovery Plan which was released this morning.
“I am very pleased to see that the Plan’s focus is on maintaining good quality services which represent good value for money and and are easily accessible to local people. I believe it is absolutely right to look first at the Hospital’s management and administration and to concentrate on increasing productivity and efficiency. None the less I would be surprised if there were no impact on patients at all. I am particularly concerned about the future of the Breast Cancer Unit and I have twice asked DCH about cleaning standards at the hospital but without getting the promised response. We will all await the details of how the Plan is to be implemented with some anxiety.
“However, whilst we need to look forward, the local community also deserves to know how we got here in the first place. The most astonishing thing for me is the statement ‘ The hospital has got into these financial problems because since 2006 it has recruited over 300 new staff and invested heavily in services in the hope [my italics] that it would attract more patients. But these extra patients never came and so we are left with rising costs but without the income to cover them.’ (para 8 of the news release). Read the rest of this entry »
