Mast Madness - You Decide Where They Go

Maggie has launched a constituency-wide campaign, which will be added to a national call for residents to have more say in where mobile phone masts are located. Maggie commented: "At the moment, masts under 15m do not need planing permission, therefore leaving local residents out of the decison making process. I am calling for a change in legislation to enable local residents to have a say in where masts are located."

To support my campaign, please email maggie@maggiethroup.com

The Big Graffiti Clean-Up

The Conservative Action Team have been taking part in the Big Graffiti Clean Up. Graffiti on the numerous 'Telewest' boxes was painted away in the first part of the Conservatives' Big Graffiti Clean Up. Well over 30 boxes in the Shakespeare Drive, Bills Lane and Monkspath areas of Shirely were cleaned and painted to help improve the local environment and ensuring the quality of life we enjoy is maintained.

Anyone who would like to report graffiti in their area can use one of the following telephone numbers:

Royal Mail Post boxes - 0845 774 0740
BT Phone & Utility boxes - 0800 661 610
Telewest – 0870 888 3116, option 1 [this is the Cabinet and Plant Maintenance Team]
British Gas Street furniture - 0845 070 9010
Network Rail property - 08457 114 141

Solihull Council - Graffiti & Fly Posting - 0121 717 1580
Solihull Council - Litter clean up - 0121 704 8000

The Big Graffiti Clean Up Action Team will be out and about again, later in the year.

My New Social Action Project

You are all probably wondering why we need a Social Action project in healthy, wealthy, leafy Solihull?

No area is immune to the wave of obesity and unfit children that is spreading across our country. These are the obese and unfit adults of the future. I am a great Jamie Oliver fan, but it is not as simple as just changing the school dinner menu. Children are inquisitive and ask why. Learning to appreciate good food and eating healthily has to start at an early age. We all know that once habits are formed it is so difficult to break them.

The importance of my project to my constituency is obvious to me when I go shopping in Shirley, one of the towns in my constituency. Shirley used to have a vibrant High Street with many local shops and a Farmers Market. But what now? The High Street has 8 charity shops and numerous discount shops – these are recognised indicators of decline. There are only 2 greengrocers, 2 butchers and just 1 traditional bakers and the Farmers Market no longer comes to town. There are ambitious plans to regenerate the High Street, bringing with it a new superstore.  But there are fears that the few remaining local shops will be forced out of business and the shoppers will lose out on choice.

But it is not just about loss of choice. It is also about how far our food travels before we get to buy it and it is also about supporting the rural and local economy. My project is to create a website about food that is fun for kids. It’s going to be about food miles, not as my local paper said, air miles. Food miles are the distances food travels from field to plate. And like air miles, food miles add to the carbon emissions that are contributing to climate change. The website will let children know that it is OK for carrots still to have soil on, and that carrots don’t have to come as bite size pieces in sealed plastic bags. We will get children to send in their favourite recipes and promote local activities. We will be asking children to send in photographs of the most unusual shaped fruit or vegetable they can find as part of an ugly fruit and vegetable competition.

I have already started to get the help of the local shopkeepers who are willing to have posters in their shops promoting the website. You can also help me – I’m not a tekkie person so I am looking for someone who can help me make the site truly interactive. But what would be even better would be to hand out DVDs to every child in Solihull – that costs money, so I am looking to you for sponsorship.

In a small way, but a fun way, my social action project will start to tackle obesity and the health time bomb that is about to explode.

SayNo2Size0

I feel sure that parents of teenage girls will share my concerns that the British Fashion Council has refused to ban underweight models for London Fashion Week (Feb 11th- 16th).

Last year two models - Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston - died from the affects of eating disorders. This prompted some in the fashion industry to suggest a Body Mass Index lower limit of 18 for girls parading on the catwalk. This would prevent the sight of emaciated young women, starved to an unhealthy US size 0  (UK size 4) from parading their stick- thin bodies in the name of fashion.

Unfortunately, London Fashion Week will continue to provide this sort of undesirable image of success and glamour for impressionable teenagers to copy. Furthermore, designer diffusion lines in high street stores – some right here in Solihull- could encourage girls to imitate the style and shape of their catwalk idols.

Young people deserve to be told the truth: being seriously underweight is actually worse than being a little overweight. Eating disorders, so often the consequence of trying to force the body into an unnatural state of skeletal thinness, pose serious risks to physical and mental health and, for girls, jeopardise their future fertility.

There are plenty of examples of beautiful women who have succeeded in today’s celebrity culture without being too thin: Cindy Crawford, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Beyonce Knowles are some who readily spring to mind.

I have been taken aback by finding so many UK size 6 clothes for sale in Solihull fashion shops.  These would fit a primary school child! I am now appealing to shops in our area not to stock UK size 4  - the equivalent of US size O favoured by models and Hollywood starlets  - as I believe that this would result in increased numbers of eating disorders.

Please email your support for  ‘sayno2size0’ to me at maggie@maggiethroup.com.