BURNLEY has been a great place to be in the past few weeks.

On Friday I visited our new £9 million Emergency Unit at the Hospital. It is not quite finished with the new unit opening in January but I was delighted to see it includes thirteen high tech consulting cubicles, a Children’s Injury Unit, a fracture facility linked to the X Ray unit in the hospital.

There is also an Ear Nose and Throat unit, an ambulance base, a doctors out of hours service, staffed with an A and E Consultant and on the second floor will be the new Rainbow centre for Children with special development difficulties .

It was great to see many familiar faces at the Rotary Club dinner I attended.

I spoke about my role as an MP and the main issues and policies at the moment. I was delighted at the interest shown in the Todmorden Curve and we discussed the Government’s investment in our town and the future of manufacturing.

Many constituents had contacted me following the awful and untrue comments that had been published in the Economist several weeks ago. I wrote a letter to the editor explaining my insult for the people of Burnley and confusion at his comments given our recent award as the most enterprising city in the UK this year.

I was then delighted to be contacted by another journalist and was able show them our new UTC and wonderful town, proving just how wrongly reported it was.

Many people have been doing some incredible work to raise money for the Prostrate Scanner Appeal for the new scanner for our hospital. I watched a number of eldery residents set off on a walk to Todmorden cricket ground in order to raise money for the appeal and given the weather and 14 mile distance, I was hugely impressed by their efforts and ability to walk so quickly!

I am as ever happy to help any constituents with their enquiries and welcome them to my weekly Friday surgeries that take place at Sainsbury’s, Asda, Burnley Library and Padiham Leisure Centre. My constituency office is open to all callers without appointments 11am- 3pm every weekday.