This week sees the return of the Romsey Food Festival, an event I absolutely love, as well as Romsey Show headed to Broadlands in a few weeks. But my focus this week has been on Southampton, including the start of the events surrounding the Ocean Globe Race, I was thrilled to be able to go on Maiden, the yacht Tracy Edwards and her all female crew steered to Whitbread Round the World glory back in 1990. Even then there was open commentary that an all-female crew had no chance of making the epic voyage, but they did, and went down in history as the highest ever finish by a British team. Maiden nowadays is used to promote girls’ education around the globe, and it was a great opportunity to hear about the work of their charity partners and to meet some of the crew.
The Solent has also been very much in the news around nitrate neutrality and the contested views on how to balance the arguments in favour of finding sites for homes to be built, against how we protect the vital environment in our waterways. This is not a new argument, and in Test Valley we have all been grappling with this for years. There is a lazy assumption that it is just the volume housebuilders who have been impacted, but I have spoken to scores of constituents who have been unable to build supported living units for disabled people, who have been prevented from converting disused retail and office space for their homes and many many “self-build” projects have also been held up or prevented altogether. So a sustainable way forward is needed, but it has to be the right one.
I am very much looking forward to the Braishfield Bees Football Tournament this weekend. I am sure there will be every bit as much excitement as there was around the World Cup last month, and it is so important to encourage children to get active and keep active. I hope the Lionesses have inspired lots more young people to take part in sport this Summer, as schools return and the dark evenings draw in the challenge will be to keep that going.
