Response to Bracknell Town Walkabout

I always enjoy talking to people in town about politics and Bracknell in general. As always there were a lot of national debates as well as local debates with many questions raised to Ray Earwicker Lib Dem PPC. I was also ask a number of questions...


For some reason I always bump into the same conservative activist who always has a lot of questions for us on the EU. It will be interesting to see what the Tories do in relation to the EU when (as I’m sure they will) win the next election. Will they have a referendum on the EU and if so how far will they go? The same guy conceded that he thinks there are too many councillors from the same party in power in Bracknell and he believed this can’t be good for democracy. Although during the 2007 council elections he was extremely happy at the time he declared.

I was asked about a tea room for the elderly. I do remember that there used to be one which closed down some time ago. I could really see that being a good idea. At the moment there is a lot of choice if you are after expensive coffee but this does exclude the elderly who loved to meet at the tea room. It would be nice to have a community tea room.

One chap who was in the army for many years believed that after he was ill he was paid less than someone he met at hospital who was foreign. I don't know the full facts but I was told that he wrote to Andrew Mackay MP about this and that Andrew wrote back stating that he could not help. I imagine it would be hard to investigate and find out the true facts. Payments may be assessed on a lot of factors which may or may not turn out to be fair depending on personal view points (Do you assess current finances or past record of service to the country?).

I also had an interesting conversion about caring for people with alzheimer's. I will blog on this subject at some point. But needless to say I think this is a very terrible and ignored disease.

There were many complaints about the lack of a full regeneration for Bracknell Town Centre. There were also many comments on the 3m building in town.

The public of Bracknell are willing to engage with politicians despite the recent expenses scandals. There were very few completes about MP's expenses, immigration or rubbish bins which are often subjects raised on the door step.