The UK’s Net Zero commitments to Offshore Wind will make the Southern North Sea the global hub of wind energy production – nowhere else will there be a greater concentration of Offshore Wind Infrastructure.

This past Friday I joined a Zoom meeting with Yaxham Parish Council members, as well as representatives of Flagship Housing, Anglian Water and Norfolk County Council’s Highways and Flood/Water Management teams.

In response the terrible flooding that hit large parts of Mid Norfolk just before Christmas, and in the early months of this year, I convened a Mid Norfolk Flood Partnership to give our affected local communities a stronger voice to speak out on the issue.

Earlier this year, the Mid Norfolk Flood Partnership group wrote to Lord Dannatt, Chair of the Norfolk Strategic Flood Alliance, to outline our 14 recommendations for actions that needed to be taken to ensure the county was much better placed to respond to, and mitigate for, future flood events.

Covid has been among the greatest challenges that our country has faced over the past hundred years, and it has required a monumental effort from us all to protect the NHS and save lives.

This last year has been catastrophic for so many people and businesses. The Covid pandemic has been particularly hard.

As part of the ongoing campaign to develop an Offshore Transmission Network (often known as an Offshore Ring Main or ORM), I was delighted to join a call with OFGEM.

All of our market towns face the familiar challenge of balancing new growth and development with the needs of the communities living in, and around, them – all the while preserving the unique rural heritage and way of life that we all cherish, and that makes our part of the world such an attractive place to visit.

For decades, successive governments have underfunded our transport network here in the East – which is why one of my central missions as an MP has been the improvement of our transport infrastructure in this region, and why I so greatly welcome the Prime Minister and Government’s commitment to “levelling-up” the places that have for too long been “left-behind”.