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On Friday, Rachel visited Kirkstall St. Stephen’s C of E Primary School to present certificates to those pupils that took part in her Christmas Card competition. The second grand winner, Fatima Karim, also attends Kirkstall St. Stephen’s and has been awarded a special certificate. Her entry was one of two which has been made into a Christmas card design for Rachel.

She subsequently visited St. Bartholomew’s Primary School, to present more Thank You certificates to the children who entered, as well as one for the final runner-up, Kiara Howard.

Rachel would like to take the opportunity once again to thank all the children who took part in her competition, and to wish them all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rachel visited Bramley Park on Thursday with Cllr. Ted Hanley and Local Labour Candidate for Bramley Caroline Gruen to see the newly installed main entrance gates. The gates are part of an £180,000 revamp for the park, which will also include new benches, sports areas, repairs to fencing and footpaths, and the planting of trees and a wildflower meadow.

Caroline said: “I think it’s a tremendous project. The changes which are planned with the sports facilities and wild flower area are going to enhance it tremendously.”

The work is due to continue over the next few months, and should be completed in the Spring.

Rachel joined the Christmas Reminiscence session at Armley Helping Hands on Friday. Whilst there, she enjoyed chatting with the group and was treated to a Christmas lunch, with turkey sandwiches and mince pies.

The group meet once a week and is made up of elderly members of the Armley community and hard working volunteers.

Rachel said:

“I really enjoyed spending time with the members of Armley Helping Hands’ reminiscence group. Everyone was really welcoming and I thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas lunch. It was great to meet some of the members and volunteers and be a part of the wonderful work they do for the Armley community. I want to wish everyone at Armley Helping Hands a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

On Friday Rachel presented certificates to every child who entered her Christmas Card competition at Greenhill Primary School and Cobden Primary School. Rachel awarded grand winner Ethan Booth, from Greenhill Primary, and runner up Briony Senior, from Cobden Primary, with special certificates.

The grand winners have had their designs printed on Christmas cards to be sent to individuals and organisations across Leeds West, London and overseas!

Rachel will be awarding the second grand winner and final runner up with their awards next week.

Last night local residents attended a very successful public meeting, hosted by Rachel, to discuss the future of Post Office services to the Hawksworth Wood Estate. After over a year of campaigning alongside local residents and Kirkstall ward councillors, Rachel has secured Post Office services to the area in the form of a Mobile Post Office Unit. This is not the end of the campaign however, as she continues to work with the Post Office to find a permanent solution for the estate. Kirkstall Councillors Lucinda Yeadon and Bernard Atha, as well as Adrian Wales from the Post Office, were on the panel of speakers.

The meeting opened with loud cheers from local residents at the mention of the new Mobile Post Office Unit. Louder cheers soon followed when Adrian announced that he would hopefully be able to announce a permanent Post Office solution shortly.

There was an open forum where residents told the panel how things had gone in the first week of the Mobile Unit’s existence. Rachel, who had used the van earlier that day, said how “it is a great temporary solution, providing an essential accessible service for everybody, with a lift feature for disabled and elderly residents.” Workers at the Hawksworth Wood Community Centre said how they had ‘used the banking service everyday... it is fantastic!’ Some residents commented how at first they were unsure about the van, but once they tried it they realised how good it was. The next step of the Post Office campaign will be the announcement of a permanent service to the Hawksworth Wood Estate.

The Mobile Unit is located outside the Co-op, and is there Monday-Friday from 10am-3pm.

Rachel recently visited Gough & Kelly, a local security firm who have lately branched out into solar energy provision. During her visit she listened to their concerns that recent cuts to the Feed in Tariff agenda, which pays energy users for the renewable energy that they generate, would be devastating for Gough & Kelly’s solar department, and could lead to the closure of their solar business.

The Government is planning to cut the tariff for solar PV installations with a capacity of 4kW or less by more than 50% from 43 pence/kWh to 21 pence/kWh. For multiple installations the rate will fall to 16.8 pence/kWh. The consultation on this issue runs until 23rd December, and new rules will come into force from 1st April next year, but will still apply to installations eligible for Feed in Tariffs from 12th December 2011 – nearly two weeks before the consultation has even closed.

Rachel commented:

“The Government’s rushed changes to the Feed-in Tariff for solar PV hit families trying to protect themselves from soaring energy bills, will put thousands of jobs and businesses in the solar industry in jeopardy and give lie to the Government’s promise to be the ‘greenest government ever’.

I accept there is a need for planned, sensible reductions in tariffs, especially as the cost of solar units has fallen, but these drastic cuts threaten to strangle at birth the solar industry, rather than grow a green industry for the future. Once again these government cut-backs are going too far, too fast.”

In a visit to The Rose Bowl, part of Leeds Metropolitan University, Rachel was invited to speak to a class of undergraduate journalism students about her work as an MP, before taking questions on a range of topics, from the recent public sector strikes to her decision to first get involved with the Labour Party.

Rachel commented:

“I really enjoyed my time at the Rose Bowl, which is a great new development for Leeds Metropolitan University. I was delighted to see so many interested students attending the session, and was pleased to take the opportunity to talk with them about so many important issues affecting the country today. There were a lot of interesting questions asked, and I’m sure that’s a sign that they will all do very well on the rest of their journalism course.”

On Friday Rachel presented the first of the awards for her Christmas Card competition, which was run for local school children in Leeds West. The competition was entered by over 600 children, and Rachel was very impressed with both the quality and quantity of entries. Two winners have been chosen to have their designs made into Christmas cards, along with four runners-up whose pictures will feature on the backs of her cards.

Visiting both Hawksworth Wood Primary School and Armley Primary School, Rachel awarded two of the runners-up, Tyler Harrison and Eleanor Horsfield, with a special certificate, along with a certificate for every child who took part.

Rachel said:

“It was fabulous to see how much hard work and effort had been put into all of the competition entries, and I was really impressed to see how many budding young artists Leeds West has to offer! I am very proud to be using two of these great designs for my Christmas cards as the Member of Parliament this year, which will be seen by people across Leeds, Westminster and beyond.”

Rachel will be presenting both of the winners and the other two runners-up with their awards over the next two weeks.