Mike is interviewed by Raring2go! Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted. Article by Antony Small. Click here for original Article.

Q: You’ve have many careers over the years, why did you get into politics?

MP: I had no intention of getting into politics actually, but what happened was I was in the army; in the fire service, got married and had a little baby and my wife was a bank manager so very, very stable, she could see exactly what day I was going to retire. I then had an accident, which meant I had to leave the fire service and I wrote to my MP, I don’t know why, and said I’ve been using my brawn most of my life in the military and fire service, I can’t use that anymore, it seemed at that moment, but the doctors were wrong. Is there any way you can help. He wrote back in a lovely letter, which I still have. The line that really got me was I have no idea how I can help but let’s try. I suppose I’ve modelled myself on Teddy [Taylor] ever since, but even then I didn’t really intend to become an MP. I wanted to be a backroom boy really, which I eventually did working for William Hague and Ian Duncan-Smith and people like that but eventually my wife, in no uncertain terms, because I was moaning at the time, to do something about it. I think she might regret that now, she married a fireman but now, first and foremost, I am an MP, my constituents is something I am very proud about, I’m very proud of my town and my constituency, I have some of the most beautiful parts of the country let alone Hertfordshire, I am a minister and a privy councillor now as well, kissed the queen, which as a 16/17 year old boy I used to guard the queen at Buckingham Palace in my bearskin and red tunics, trooping of the colour, to walk into Buckingham Palace in my own right at the invitation of the monarch and swearing allegiance, becoming a privy councillor was probably one of the proudest days I’ve had. I have no intention, I’m passionate about people having an opportunity to live their dream and take the opportunities that come along in life and, for me that was the military initially, I’m dyslexic and I was written off at school, but, like of lot of dyslexic people, I had skills in other ways, in my case sport, I’m a pretty good rugby player and reasonable boxer, so the army grabbed me, and I just tried to utilise those skills ever since really.

Q: I recently read, an article where you were saying that Hemel Hempstead was a beautiful place, and that Hemel Hempstead was voted the eighth happiest place to live In Britain; why do you think this is?

MP: It was for once a proper survey, not a Mickey Mouse one, which someone had rigged before about the town and about other towns. I really annoyed me when we were voted as the ugliest town or something like that. You’ve only got to look out the window of my office [the Bury] and take a look at Gadebridge Park and that goes way off into the Chilterns and Ashbridge and down and the town as designed very cleverly, when the new town was designed, it incorporated what was already here; Apsley and Boxmoor and the old town were already here, it protected many of the existing greenery and trees so we have very defined wards, there is no way, anywhere in my town that if you don’t look in any direction you won’t see trees and fields and valley and its beautiful. I’m not saying that at times it doesn’t need a bit of regeneration, and perhaps were a bit late in some of the regeneration that came, there were many different reasons for that, Buncefield was a big reason, that caused us some problems, actually Buncefield has in hindsight been the catalyst that drove us forward to actually regenerate, but to protect what we have. There’s cranes galore in my town at the moment and drilling and new town centre and a huge amount of working being done in the Maylands business areas, but that’s very successful as well because success breeds success, people want to move to the town and businesses move to the town, my unemployment level is less than 2%, some of the lowest in the country, for a new town 6360fe2428f8d59071517c033025fcee.jpgthat is remarkable.

Q: What kind of developments are you going to make in the future to develop the town further?

MP: We are sitting in the Bury, which is an historic house, a grade 2 listed building in Gadebridge Park, at the moment the registry office is here, and weddings, the registrars are going to move out to the new civic centre, so we have a brand new civic zone being built, the whole of the town centre is going through a regeneration project at the moment, the bus stations is being moved, making it much more accessible for people, we are going to regenerate literally the town centre by bringing 800 homes into the town centre, so people don’t have to drive everywhere and live in the community. We have to have homes for people to live in, but we have to make sure that we protect as much of the environment while we’re doing that as possible. We’ve got to make sure that we have the amenities we need, I stood in Jarman Park leisure facility 7 years ago and said either this is regenerated or we knock it down. It was an eyesore, it was a problem, it was a problem for the police, people didn’t want to go there, when I went to the cinema I would go to Garston and the restaurants there, now I’m going to have an IMAX, I’ve some of the busiest restaurants anywhere in Hertfordshire at the moment, and more regeneration coming. You can’t sit still, the town centre’s been done, Jarman’s been done, my schools are being done up, 2 schools are being completely rebuilt at the moment, which is great for the pupils and the town as well, and its encouraging people to come and live here. As a town centre, especially one with a new town development concept, it has to evolve, so I don’t think it is a case of us standing still for five years and doing something again, you have to need a continuous evolution and I think one of the problems historically going back 10 years was that the town did stand still. I’ve got trees that are coming towards the end of their life expectancy and we lose them and that’s sad but then we plant new ones and that’s really an evolutionary process a town has to go through.

Q: You were talking earlier about the transport links, including the new bus station being built, are there any more improvements that you feel Hemel needs in this area?

MP: Crossrail coming to Hemel is going to be massively important, the government committee to bring Crossrail here. The west coast mainline is at full capacity, we’ve got a real issue there, I used to be a transport minister responsible for logistics and I know how much more fright I can get on trains rather than on roads. I would like a North release road at Junction 8 [of the M1] at Hemel because the commercial area is so successful can become very difficult so if we can develop between the M1 and Hemel for housing then part of that cost should be a northern relief road. I’d love to have some kind of monorail between the town centre and Hemel station, which is actually in Boxmoor. Very few of the new towns that developed when this was developed, did they think about it properly and put a station in the middle. I remember being a fireman at Basildon, there was no railway station at Basildon at all, even though the railway went right through the middle of it. We don’t go through the middle here because I’ve got the Boxmoor trust area and the moor, which we want to protect so I don’t want to do that, there should be, I think, a better link between the town centre, which is so successful at the moment and Hemel station, which we all know is in Boxmoor.

Q: Are there any bus link improvements on their way?

MP: Buses are a real issue, there is a big review into bus services at the moment, sadly so many of the buses don’t make any money, so you need to sort out the ones you subsidise and where you don’t. Parking for most of the town is a real issue, so I prefer more people walk, that’s the healthier option, or cycle.

Q: Are there any facilities to help improve cycling safety?

MP: There are two things in the town that make it, I think, more exciting, firstly, it’s not flat, so if you cycle it is genuinely healthy and we’ve had the international races coming here, including the Tour of Britain last year. I think we have to balance this, everybody has a right to the roads and so we have to make sure they are as safe as possible. The key for people who are cycling, I think, is to wear a helmet too often I don’t see too many people wearing them. The biggest issue for cycling is when you get out of my town and you get into the rural roads because some of them are very narrow, I want cyclists to really enjoy it out there but at the same time they have to be conscious that at the same time there are people trying to get pas them. I think we’re ok, as I say parking is an issue, there’s more people cycling than there’s ever been, there’s more people walking, his weekend we will be inundated with cyclists wearing their lycra. That’s great, it’s a very healthy sport.

Q: You said that parking is a problem, how will parking be improved for people dropping their children off at school?

MP: There is no excuse for people blocking people’s drives or blocking the road just so that they can drop their children off, we need more people to walk to school rather than to be driven to school. However, if you look at somewhere like my South Hill School, which has been almost completely rebuilt, we did redesigned the school so there would be a physical drop off point inside the school grounds, and that’s the sort of thing to do as the schools get regenerated and rebuilt. But young people need to exercise and one thing I have always encouraged, is for, wherever possible, spend that extra 10 or 15 minutes and walk the kids to school. It is not the job of the headmistress to do street patrols outside schools. It is frustrating though, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 10 or 15 years with the police and with the schools trying to address this, I don’t know what happens to people’s common sense sometimes when they want to drop their children off at school. I have got many of my constituents that go off to Watford or Aylesbury, so it is logical that they are going to have to go by some kind of vehicular transport rather than walking, but wherever it is possible you should be walking.

Q: On the subject of schools, what is your opinion on academy and free schools?

MP: Choice. I’m a great believer in choice. I think choice also drives up standards, I have everything from faith schools, academies and free schools, state schools, I have some that do fantastically well and some that need an awful lot of help, I’ve had some schools close in the last few years here and one of them has reopened as a free school, to my feeling, and my daughter is a teacher, I think it is about choice, I’m quite open-minded about who delivers the education as long as it is a good education.

Q: You are minister of state for policing, how can you reassure the people of Hemel that they and their children are safe [particularly at school]?

MP: The best people to decide what the policing needs are in our area are the police. They know what the crime is, they know where the issues are. The work of the police we see is only a tiny proportion, something like 20%, of the work that the police do. People like to say to me that we want to see more police on the streets, the answer to that is you tend to see more police on the street if there’s more crime. If you’re in a low crime area, I’m in a very low crime area, then the police tend to be doing other things. If there is an accident and people are injured, the job police do need to be there because that is their job, it’s not for a political to decide the policing levels in any particular area, it is for the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner. I’m going through a review at the moment of how we fund the police and that’s been a really interesting experience, I did promise right at the start when I did the consultation, I had a set of ideas which would be different to what we started with or else it wouldn’t be a proper consultation.

Q: We are on a site of major historical importance for Hemel [the Bury], how do you think history has helped Hemel to develop?

MP: If you took Hemel’s name away and put St Albans, we’d have tourists tomorrow morning because there’s Roman artefacts and Roman remains here, Henry VIII’s hunting lodges were here, Ashridge was created by Henry VIII and people are him, the Royal charter we have was from Henry’s time. We should be singing from the rafters a little bit more, actually the Roman road came through Hemel, the Watling Road north, even though the area very interesting Roman artefacts in St Albans, we is just down the road, actually there’s an awful lot here, plans for a building like this [the Bury] is that it will be turned into a heritage centre by mid [20]17. We’ve got to make sure that a lot of the stuff that is hidden away at the moment is brought out so that the public can see it, it is difficult for a new town to do that, we say we’re a new town but we’re nearly 70 years old.

Q: Raring2Go is a; what’s on, where to go guide, what places and events do you personally enjoy in Hemel?

MP: I’m very proud to have the largest indoor snow centre in the country, I was very proud to press the buttons when we turned the snow on and put 6 foot of snow in there. We have the XC facilities, where you can skateboard inside and outside, you can skateboard here in the [Gadebridge] park, and we’ve got indoor facilities and the wall climbing, you name it we’ve got it. Jarman [Park] has brilliant facilities. We have, right on our doorstep, some of the most brilliant parts of the Chilterns, we’ve got the canal and water sports, you name what you want to do, I’ve got Olympic champions in this town, I’ve got Max Whitlock and basketball. The sport with the biggest crowds last year in average: Basketball - Hemel Storm. Hemel Town [football team] are doing brilliantly well, we’re up in the Conference South now. We’ve got a professional rugby league team, we’ve got sport coming out of our ears, and great national champions and world champions. If you want it it’s here, my job is to make sure everybody knows it is here and that’s the key to it.

Q: You mentioned Jarman Park earlier, are there any future plans for it?

MP: There’s a bit of land left on the left hand side, which was originally going to be for the hotels, the biggest thing that is going to happen for Jarman in the next three to four months is the largest IMAX cinema by far in this part of the world, the only one in Hertfordshire, as well as all of the other smaller screens as well, it’s just transformed it. You used to go up there on a Saturday night and you wouldn’t find anybody, now you can’t move indoor and outdoor, it has 100% transformed itself, and it think that brilliant. We’ve got some plans possible to move the athletics track from Jarman into one of the schools, so that the schools can have facility on their door step as well, and that frees up the land for us, perhaps for some other things. There’s lots going on, not just in entertainment terms, there’s a huge amount to do [in Hemel], and the fortunate thing it that there is jobs to actually help finance you to help do those activities, there’s lots of part time jobs.

Q: Is there a message you want to say to the children and parents of Hemel Hempstead?

MP: Be proud. The amount of people that come to this town from outside, I was at the snow centre earlier on in the week and people were saying I wish we had this. Of course we have got, every area has gone its issues, if we run down the place everyone can see that, then why would people come and why would they invest? The more positive we are about our community, and we got every reason to be positive, which is why I singing from the rafters that Hemel Hempstead has been voted the 8th happiest town in the country, then we should do that, don’t let people run it down.

Q: What makes Hemel the 8th happiest town in the country?

MP: You have a real mixture of communities, that do really, really well together and from that point of view, that kind of empathy people have with each other, I think does really well. Cleary, if other people are saying that and voting that way, being positive, the more we are positive, then the better it will be, we all have our bad days, everybody has difficult times, but just take a look at what we’ve got and compare it to other places. Ok, they might have a slightly prettier building or might have a bit of Roman remains, but there are very few places, that can say, genuinely that they’ve got what we’ve have here. We’re right on top of London, 17 minutes out of Euston, the M1 is on our door step and you can even get to Bicester [designer outlet] quite quickly, which is frightening really if you’re a dad.