Your issues are my issues as we expand and grow

Sir Tony Baldry did a very good job of representing us in the Banbury constituency. He has been the MP here since I was 10, and he is a large and impressive figure and I’m very fond of him.

He was clearly loved by his constituents and he has given me an awful lot of advice.

With him people got very used to having a personal service. I hope to follow him in this.

I was born here and I’m hoping to sign a lease on an office here, where I will base most of the staff.

It’s very important to keep a strong link between members of parliament and the community they represent.

My father was an MP and my mother was a vicar, which is similar in the way that you have to represent the community.

I want to carry on this tradition of representing the community.

I live near Deddington and I’m hoping to come home whenever I can. The area’s issues are my issues.

When they are building new houses in Bicester and the roads become congested, it affects me.

If there is a problem with the local hospital, I feel it.

Every public service is something that I use so I can see the problems on a daily basis.

I want to be an advocate for people in the area. That’s what I’m good at and determined to do.

The first main priority locally is managing our growth.

The huge amount of housing and industrial growth is great and a testament to our success, but the infrastructure needs to be planned very carefully if we’re not all to feel that we live in a building site.

Roads need improving and bridges need strengthening, like that in Upper Heyford which needs to be made stronger to cope with the amount of traffic it has to take.

In Banbury the one town centre bridge by the station is very congested at certain times of day and it may be that we can do more around Banbury to alleviate this.

The Chiltern Rail line is, however, very good – I use it myself – and it is a major factor in the economic success of the area.

We also have excellent links to the M40 and are very well positioned in that respect. But in rural areas bus services need to be improved, especially bearing in mind the ageing population.

In healthcare, I am very fond of the Horton Hospital because I was born there. We are very lucky locally that we have the Horton General Hospital and the John Radcliffe.

We need to ensure the Horton remains not under threat and there is scope for expanding some services there, for example in maternity.

There needs to be expansion in healthcare along with housing growth and I will be talking to Oxford University Hospitals Trust about this.

I am very proud that we have a lot of signs in the streets locally saying there are jobs available.

The important thing is that we also provide high-quality jobs so that we can employ our engineers and chemists.

This gives school pupils something to aim for and helps to raise their aspirations.

We have some great employers here with family firms like Norbar and Karcher – and we need more of them.

Banbury is a destination town. It is a place people come to from other places to shop, so the expansion of retail at places like Castle Quay is important.

But there is work to do in the town centre to make it more attractive to visitors.

In Bicester I like the idea of linking the retail outlets on the outskirts with the centre of the town, but we need retailers to come in to help to fill the gap.

Rural poverty is often much worse in this area than people think and there are difficulties with people in rural areas getting transport and accessing jobs and apprenticeships.

I think in Banbury there is something of a drug culture in the centre of town and we clearly still need to focus on that. And we need to work hard at stopping child sex exploitation, although we have had some big successes in that area.

We’re doing really well in Banbury and we’re hoping the town will become more blue at the next county council elections.

We only missed out in Grimsbury by 73 votes last year and we want to win that seat next time.