New Wokingham Lib Dem MP Clive Jones reflects on a future under Labour

Twyford, Wargrave and Ruscombe's new MP, Clive Jones, said he was ‘absolutely delighted’ to have won a seat in Parliament in the General Election – and that it was 'quite something' to be in the Parliament as a new MP this week.

He is the MP for Wokingham - and the three villages fall under this constituency after the boundaries were redrawn. They were previously in the Maidenhead constituency.

Asked why he thought he came away victorious, he said: “People saw that I'm a local person. I’ve been leader of council for a year, a councillor for eight years.

“I've lived locally for over 40 years, and both the Labour and Conservative candidates lived in London and were parachuted in at the last moment.

“It's a huge difference. A lot of people recognised that on the doorstep.”

Another thing people brought up on the doorstep quite frequently, Mr Jones said, was sewage in the River Loddon, flowing into the Thames – something to be solved in the future, he hopes.

“We’ve got to make sure that water companies are not allowed to keep doing this,” he said. “[The Government] are going to have some conversations with Thames Water.”

He added that something also needed to be done with the Royal Berkshire Hospital, which is still the local hospital for most people who live in Twyford and Wargrave.

“It is crumbling," he said.

The maintenance staff ‘do an unbelievably fantastic job keeping the place running,’, he said, but this is an uphill battle and what is needed is for the promised new hospital to get built, he believes.

“The Conservatives announced there would be a delay to the [new] Royal Berkshire Hospital, so it wouldn’t be built until 2036-37,” Mr Jones said.

“It’s supposed to be finished in 2030. It's six or seven years late – that’s not acceptable. The previous MPs didn't push hard enough. I might not get anywhere but I'll push very hard."

Generally, he said those constituents he spoke to ‘want the NHS to be restored to what it used to be’.

Mr Jones added that he hopes Labour will protect greenbelt in the constituency, and help keep housing numbers down, given its historical over-delivery.

"We have delivered 40,000 new houses in the last 40 years,” he said. 

He said his first act as the leader of Wokingham council was to write to Michael Gove (then Secretary of State for housing) asking to be able to work to keep numbers down, to no avail.

"We've got a high number of houses purely because of the last Government,” he said. “That is a big issue – people brought that up a lot on the doorstep.”

Wokingham council is going to be coming up with its local plan soon – and it remains to see what Labour's policy will be on housing, Mr Jones said, which will affect how the plan looks.

Ultimately, ‘we don't want greenbelt to be built on,’ he said.

“We want to be able to protect green spaces everywhere as much as we can.”

Summing up, Mr Jones wanted to assure those who didn't vote for him: “I am still their MP and I will be there to help them if they need my help.”