A27 upgrades and Brexit dominate open meeting

The weekend before the meaningful vote I was in West Wittering Village Hall holding an open meeting. The meeting was slightly different to my previous ones as it was dominated almost entirely by two subjects; the A27 and of course Brexit.
Chichester MP Gillian KeeganChichester MP Gillian Keegan
Chichester MP Gillian Keegan

The first hour was spent on the A27, which was timely after receiving a disappointing letter from Highways England that explained their decision to reject the road improvement options put forward by the Build a Better A27 group and Systra. For the past 20 months, as your MP, I have been engaged with the community and both councils individually and through the Build a Better A27 community workshops. In total, I have had well over 30 meetings with Local Authorities and Government Ministers, and I have called on the Secretary of State publicly and privately for his support. I have been clear from the start that my role is not to input to a scheme design, but instead, fight for funding when the community come together around an option that is supported by Highways England and is agreed as viable and deliverable.

Moving forward I am hoping to secure a meeting with the Secretary of State, Chris Grayling, and both councils which I requested on December 20. In the meantime, I will continue to work with both local councils and our next meeting is in diary for later this month.

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For the second hour the bulk of questions concerned leaving the European Union. In the referendum Chichester was marginally leave; with 50.9 per cent voting leave and 49.1per cent remain. The village hall was similarly divided, but interestingly there was a variety of views on what to do next. A few wished to leave without a deal, and a couple wanted a second vote but the majority, like me, wanted to see a sensible, low risk Brexit that honoured the referendum result whilst protecting our economy and jobs.

This week brought the historic meaningful vote to Parliament where I supported the Prime Minister. Now that Parliament has rejected the current deal on the table we must redouble our efforts to find a solution that both honours the Referendum result but avoids the harmful effects of a No Deal exit from our current trading arrangements with the EU. Behind the scenes in Parliament, there are many occasions where MPs work on a cross-party basis and we will need to do a lot more of this in order to deliver a good outcome here for our country and break the current impasse.

:: My next pub tour is on March 15 at The Three Moles, Selham.