“I’m keen that anyone in our area, who has a view on the price of petrol and diesel is able to make their voice heard. That’s why I’m giving them George Osborne’s email address! His consultation document on plans to stabilise the price of fuel is open to anyone in Solihull. Had the Fair Fuel Stabiliser been introduced in the last budget, people in our area would already be paying 5p a litre less every time they fill up at the pumps.”

Details of the consultation can be found at www.voice4solihull.com

Maggie Throup, Solihull’s Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman has launched a new ‘Facebook’ group – Keep Solihull’s Post Offices Open – as part of her ongoing campaign to stop post office closures in Solihull.

Ms Throup commented: “The Facebook Group is just one of the many ways I’m letting everyone know about the threat to our local post offices. In April Shadow Trade Secretary, Alan Duncan came to Solihull to help highlight my campaign. I’ve followed this with a mass mailing with petition slips to over 10,000 homes in Solihull.

“Hundreds of completed petition sheets have already been returned and many people have completed my online petition. Now I have made the campaign virtual just at the same time we have learnt that three of our Solihull post offices are set for closure, Catherine de Barnes, Olton Hollow and Haslucks Green Road, along with Berkswell.

“Obvioulsy, as a resident of Catherine de Barnes for over 18 years, I know just what a huge loss this post office would be if closure went ahead. I am sure this feeling is duplicated at all the other post offices.

“I will be campaigning along with the sub-postmasters and eventually taking all the petition slips, online petition names and the Facebook group details straight to Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street.

Ms Throup’s online petition can be found at www.voice4solihull.comand readers can join the Facebook group: Keep Solihull’s Post Offices OPEN.

With our local GP surgeries under threat from Government proposals for Polyclinics, Maggie Throup, Solihull’s Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman launched a campaign in Solihull town centre to save our GP surgeries.

It has been estimated that 1,700 family doctor surgeries could be closed down across England if Whitehall plans to replace local GPs’ surgeries with impersonal super-surgeries known as ‘polyclinics’ go ahead.

Polyclinics are little different from a small hospital, and nothing like the independent, local GP practice with just a few doctors that patients know and trust. Labour Ministers are planning to end the era of local GP surgeries in almost every area. This will mean that patients will have to travel further to receive treatment, which will particularly disadvantage the elderly and families with small children.

Maggie commente: “We already knew that the Labour Government is planning to close thousands of local Post Offices. Now I fear that local GP surgeries are in their sights. Patients will have further to travel and will be lucky to see the same GP twice.”

“Labour politicians in Whitehall must not be allowed to force polyclinics on areas where they are unwanted and not needed.”

Local GPs are also up in arms over these proposals and have posters and peotions in many of their surgeries.

To take part in a ‘Quick Poll’ log onto www.voice4solihull.com