Summer Adjournment

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and to follow so many fine speakers and speeches. I would like to raise three important constituency issues in my remarks.

First, Great Western Air Ambulance is based in my constituency at the Filton airfield site. It is run and supported by extremely dedicated and hard-working people. Like all air ambulances, it is a charity. The team who run the service have to raise the funds they need to keep it going—approximately £1.5 million a year. The charity receives no funding from the Government and, as a relatively new air ambulance charity, it has no cash reserves.

The Great Western air ambulance flies approximately 1,500 missions a year and provides emergency cover for 2.1 million people in Bristol, Bath, north-east Somerset, north Somerset, Gloucestershire and parts of west Wiltshire. It is one of the few air ambulances that works to the gold-standard critical care model, which means rushing a critical care paramedic and critical care doctor to the scene. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, it can be with the casualty within 20 minutes of receiving the emergency call anywhere within the region it covers.

On average, 20% of incidents that the Great Western air ambulance attends involve providing emergency care and transfer for children under the age of 16 and babies. The critical care team are volunteers, giving up their precious personal time to help others. Great Western Air Ambulance has managed to secure two full-time trainee pre-hospital emergency medicine doctors from University Hospitals Bristol medical school. I pay great tribute to Great Western Air Ambulance for its fantastic life-saving work.

Great Western Air Ambulance needs a new helicopter. Its current helicopter, a 1972 Bölkow 105, is no longer fit for purpose. It does not have the power to land at the new elevated helipad at Bristol Royal Infirmary or at Bristol children’s hospital. As I mentioned, 20% of its cases involve children. The helicopter is relatively slow to load up, start up, shut down and unload. The clinical stability of the patient and the confined space in the cab mean that the helicopter often cannot transport patients. Those limitations mean that patients must be transported by road. A new modern air ambulance helicopter will save time and, therefore, save lives.

With the help of my hon. Friends the Members for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), I am supporting Great Western Air Ambulance’s charity bid for £1,020,000 from the LIBOR fund. That amount would pay for the first year of the EC135 helicopter’s running costs, allowing the charity to put its long-term financial position on a much more sustainable basis. I look forward to meeting the Chancellor to discuss this matter, along with my neighbours, my hon. Friends the Members for Kingswood and for Bristol North West. I will be playing a small part in fundraising for the charity by running a Bristol half-marathon in September.

The next matter I would like to bring to the attention of the House is the need for a new junction on the M49 in my constituency. I have had previous meetings with road Ministers, and there have so far been various bids for this junction by the Highways Agency, South Gloucestershire council and, most recently, the local enterprise partnership. A new junction on the M49 would provide essential infrastructure investment to help unlock the potential of Avonmouth Severnside. Avonmouth Severnside is the largest brownfield site in western Europe, extending five miles along the Severn estuary between the north of Bristol and adjacent to the M5 and M49 motorways. Planning permission for commercial space and development has been granted, but much of the land has not yet been utilised. The new junction would link Avonmouth Severnside growth area to other key economic centres in the south-west.

Currently, there are access issues, with industrial traffic having to go a long way around, and often through, picturesque villages. The solution is simple: a junction on the M49 that would open access across the enterprise area. The junction would be good for business, jobs and the economy, both in my constituency and across the region. Work should start without delay.

The third issue I would like to highlight relates to the Frenchay residents user group. I would like to pay tribute to the group, which is known as RUG. It was set up as a local residents group to engage with the local community in relation to plans to redevelop the Frenchay hospital site and to ensure that local residents’ voices were heard, represented and considered. RUG has had some notable successes. One was to prevent the magnificent lime tree avenue on the site being chopped down, and another was to provide support to the village green application, which will preserve around 30 acres of green space in perpetuity for the local community.

RUG has grown in strength, with more than 1,000 members. Last Sunday, it became the new Frenchay residents association. It has a constitution, and has elected its first president and committee. I was honoured to take part in the first meeting by proposing the new constitution and the election of the first president and committee members. The first president is Frenchay resident of more than 50 years, Bob Woodward OBE, who was honoured in the Queen’s birthday honours list this year. Bob founded the children’s leukaemia charity CLIC in 1976, after his son, Robert, was diagnosed with cancer. Sadly, Robert died in 1977, aged only 11 years old. Bob went on to raise more than £50 million for the charity and has dedicated his life to charity work, including for the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, the Children’s Hospice appeal and the Starfish Trust. I am sure Bob will be a fantastic president of the new residents association. I wish him and the new residents group all the very best in continuing their great work to safeguard Frenchay’s best interests.