I hope everyone had a good Easter. We were blessed with good weather to get outside and down the canal. From next Monday, life will continue to get a bit better when hairdressers, shops, gyms, theme parks, zoos and children’s indoor activities can reopen.

Restaurants and pubs will be allowed to serve food and alcohol to customers sitting outdoors too. I think wrapping up warm will be worth it if necessary!

I can see that the focus on the post Covid recovery is also continuing at pace. The hard work has already started to make sure that Stroud seeks the investment it needs to recover from the pandemic and build infrastructure to secure jobs, economic growth, and protect communities in the years to come.

A big part of the Government’s plans to achieve this is the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund. Stroud is in Priority 2 for the fund and the district council is quite rightly considering proposals.

Up to £20 million is available, or up to £50 million for initiatives that have a transport component to them.

I have a role to play as the criteria says any project needs the local MP’s endorsement to stand the best chance of success.

We need to gain maximum benefit from this fund for as many people as possible and any bid must reflect the fund’s aims: to invest in high value infrastructure.

Another fund the government has launched is the £150 million Community Ownership Fund which will give a helping hand to save community assets. So, this is a shout out to Stroud, the Valleys and Vale organisations to look into the fund to see if it can help.

Feeding into this general strategy is also funding through the Restoring Your Railway Fund for Stonehouse Bristol Road and Sharpness Stations. Both projects have applied for £20,000 each for a feasibility studies to see if both can become stations. I have supported the bids.

Finally, there is a really big one: a Nuclear Fusion Reactor at Berkeley and Oldbury. The Government’s UK Atomic Energy Authority is now looking for a site and both, because they are former nuclear power station sites, are in the running. This would be fantastic for our area with billions of pounds of investment and thousands of jobs and apprenticeships as a reward in the decades to come. It’s certainly a long term project but we must have ambition.

I’m committed to doing all I can to make the case for securing as much funding as possible for us here.

My post bag is starting to fill up with correspondence about the government looking at so-called Covid passports. From what I have seen of the proposals so far, I would not support a vote in parliament on this as I think they will be divisive and create more problems than they solve. I will be talking to ministers in the coming days to obtain more details and make my views known.