Summer is drawing to a close, but I hope many of you have been able to get a little time to re-charge the batteries and spend time with friends and family.

Although Parliament was ‘recessed’ that doesn’t stop the hundreds of letters, emails and social media messages hitting my desk.

In the last year alone, I’ve helped with many thousands of constituents’ issues and questions.

MPs are free at the point of access and I’m always happy to help out where I can, and it often surprises me about the range of things people write to their MP about and the problems I can sort out.

I hold regular advice surgeries and MPs have a number of dedicated helplines and specialist Government departmental teams so often we are able to help with urgent problems quite quickly and efficiently.

My post bag also tells me the things that you want to improve in our area. I’ve always been an advocate of the principle that ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’.

Thanks to you, I’ve successfully campaigned for better school funding and nearly £5 million extra funding for local school classrooms.

I’ve also lobbied for £29 million for improvements at the Worcestershire Royal.

Many of you wrote to me about transport problems and congestion – upwards of £100 million is being spent on the local road network and that’s largely down to continuing to lobby Government ministers to find the cash.

Whether it’s the Carrington Road bridge or the pedestrian crossing on Station Road in Pershore, everything stems from requests from you which I have used to speak to the Government.

I also get a lot of correspondence about broadband issues – almost all of you now have access to superfast broadband and I’ve been pleased to make recent progress with the county council on some of the more rural parts of West Worcestershire.

So do bear in mind that your MP is there to help – and if you ever feel that you need to contact me, even if it is to share your view, please do so: that’s what I am here for.