HAPPY new year to you all!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed a happy break with loved ones.

Now we’re into the first days of 2019 and it’s time to look ahead to the next 12 months, which will, no doubt, be full and complex.

I’ve jotted down, not just one, but a list of ten visions that I’d like to see in 2019.

Some require urgent and immediate action, others will take more than a year to come to fruition but I hope we can start to lay the foundations for them in the months to come.

I’m looking forward to a new year of working hard, and with many of you, to create a better, more inclusive society and a brighter future for Stroud and beyond.

Here’s my list of ten.

1. That we find a way out of the Brexit morass

2. That we have no street sleepers in Stroud

3. That Stroud railway station becomes fully accessible

4. That we start to rebuild our youth and community services

5. That we provide enough affordable houses, built sustainably in the right locations

6. That we encourage more people to cycle and walk

7. That we have a sensible waste policy, based on avoidance, reuse and recycling

8. That we start to take climate change much more seriously

9. That we start to recompense those who have lost out so badly because of pension unfairness to women born in the 1950s

10. That Forest Green Rovers get promoted to Division 1 of the Football League