Posted on July 21, 2011 by Phillip Lee

During recess in Parliament the House of Commons is not in session, meaning that MPs have more time to spend in their constituencies. Easter Recess started last week and I am pleased to have the opportunity to be in Bracknell in the forthcoming weeks.

On Thursday I met with Inspector Mike Squire at Birch Hill and was introduced to the work he does through his “For the Future Campaign”.  Inspector Squire is a well-known local Inspector with responsibility for South Bracknell, Crowthorne and Sandhurst. He devised an idea to bring together local communities with the common purpose of creating community awareness and cohesion to reduce crime and the fear of crime at a local level.

Inspector Squire spends his free time managing the campaign and the work he does has been very well received in the neighbourhood.  The project has had funds from the Waitrose Green Token project, and Inspector Squire was presented with a cheque from Waitrose last week. The local residents at Birch Hill are rightly proud of their community projects.   Inspector Squire’s “For the Future Campaign” and the work of all the volunteers in the local community help ensure that the area continues to be a great place to live.

In total the “For the Future Campaign” include four community projects;

1.  South Road Allotments in Great Hollands, Bracknell. This project includes an allotment which is maintained by the staff and children of Wooden Hill School.
2. Birch Hill Community Centre, Bracknell. This project includes planting boxes which are maintained by the local community including guides and Brownies, as well as the ‘Story Tree’. The ‘Story Tree’ is a tree that will be planted outside the community centre and library around which an area will be fenced off with chairs available for local librarians to read to children. For this project Inspector Squire has kindly received donations from Bracknell Forest Homes (£1000) and Jason Charles Jewellers (£500).
3. High Street Planters, Crowthorne. This project is maintained by the children of Church of England Primary School, with other local primary schools also joining the project.
4. Wildridings Shops. This project focuses on general tidying, planting and repainting the shops in Wildriging in order to enhance the area where the shops and flats are.  For this project McDonalds has kindly donated equipment for gardening.