Congratulations to the five MEPs elected for the East Midlands:
- Roger Helmer, Conservative
- Emma McClarkin, Conservative
- Glenis Willmott, Labour
- Derek Clark, UKIP
- Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat
On behalf of the blog we have emailed all five with the following letter, hopefully encouraging them to engage with the site and respond to the issues raised here over the last year.
Dear MEP
I am contacting you on behalf of PARWICH.ORG, possibly the first community run blog in the UK, serving a small cluster of villages within the Peak District National Park.
Congratulations on your election/re-election as our MEP. We believe sites such as ours have an enormous potential for small communities to engage with the wider world on the issues that matter to them. This would seem to be very important for such as MEPs, who historically are seen as remote from their constituents.
We would welcome your thoughts on such community websites and your ideas and plans on promoting the interests of your rural constituents in the European Parliament, including our readers.
Prior to last week’s election, we sent some candidates for the European Parliament elections a list of the issues raised by our community over the last year. These issues are by their nature local to us, and perhaps our wording encouraged recipients to see just the aspects relevant to domestic politicians. However, we feel they are of potentially wider significance and so have reworded them below:
Environment:
Previously Parwich was successful in obtaining EU grants for various small scale environmental improvement projects. Unfortunately this particular fund is no longer available. How does the EU plan to continue to support environmentally sensitive areas such as the Peak District, and is this something we can interest you in as one of our MEPs?
Alternative energy production is not always easy in National Parks because of planning constraints. What are your views on this, and what is the potential role of the European Parliament in progressing this?
Local Democracy:
As residents of a National Park, we are subject to a National Park Authority to which there are no direct elections. This is particularly significant in relation to planning issues, where the lack of democratic scrutiny is particularly felt by residents. What is the role of MEPs and the EU in encouraging the development of local democracy in member states?
Community:
Communities within National Parks are subject to particular pressures in relation to restrictions on commercial activities and housing opportunities. At a national level we are very much a minority, despite politicians’ assertions that they listen to the countryside lobby. What is the role of MEPs and the EU in promoting the interests of small rural communities such as ourselves?
Highways:
The correct management and maintenance of highways is vital to the local economy and environment. Locally we have specific problems with the B5056 that our County Council has had difficulty in dealing with. The geology of our area is a mixture of limestone and in places overlying clay and shale, which makes the course of the B5056 liable to subsidence. The road has been problematic since its creation in 1811 as a turnpike, with problems balancing the cost of maintenance against levels of use ever since.
Locally the B5056 is essential to a number of quarries, and to keep both quarry and tourist traffic off the single track roads running through sensitive countryside and villages where there are no pavements. The County Council is not in a position to finance the upgrading of the full length of this route, but is this an issue that the EU could support?
Please either email a response for us to post on the site or add your comments directly to our site, using the comments facility at the bottom of the version of this letter posted there.
PARWICH.ORG 
Thank you for the interesting message.
It sounds like an excellent idea. If and when you feel you need help or advice about something with an EU connnection, please get in touch with me straightaway.
All good wishes
Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP
http://www.newton-dunn.com
In addition to the somewhat tangential comment above from Bill Newton Dunn, Glenis Willmott acknowledged receipt of our email saying she would get back later, but the two Conservative and the UKIP MEPs have not responded at all.
It is not looking like our MEPs are interested in engaging with our concerns. Given we enjoy an excellent relationship with our MP and our local councillors, it is disappointing that our MEPs seem uninterested.
Contrary to your comments above, over the last few weeks I have been focussing my time on the constituency and have therefore not been able to regularly check the contents of my Brussels inbox.
Local matters are very important to me – indeed, that’s why I came to Brussels. I see my role primarily as providing a voice for my constituents in the Parliament, a function which so many of my colleagues seem to have forgotten.
The truth is that the Parliament is not hugely concerned with local communities. In it’s drive for ever increasing power and European unity, it would prefer that local voices were not heard lest they would like to do things their own way.
I am in contact reguarly with various local interest groups and do my best to support them in their goals. Our East Midlands office is also adept at helping people make the most of local funding schemes. If your readers have any issues they would like to discuss, I would be happy to listen to them.
Best Regards,
Roger Helmer MEP
I welcome Roger Helmer’s comment above as a positive step in engaging in communication, but he does not indicate if he intends to respond to the parwich.org email itself when time permits.
The European Parliament Constituencies are large and we are a small rural community, but the East Midlands contains a large number of such small rural communities which to varying degrees will be experiencing the same concerns as ourselves.