01 Mar 2024
All the levers on the Liberal Democrat campaign machine are set to full speed ahead, inexorably focused on seizing control of the newly-created constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted by ensuring the election of candidate Victoria Collins as MP.
Although a General Election is still potentially months away, the fight for the Herts heartland seat has truly begun in earnest, with barely a week going by without a gold-coloured publicity leaflet landing on the doormat of local residents.
We first spoke with entrepreneur and environmental campaigner Victoria shortly after she launched her campaign, with her priorities then focused on NHS waiting times, the cost of living crisis, and the harm being caused by water companies pumping sewage into our streams and rivers.
So have things changed in the past few months? “There are still the same issues on the doorstep, quite frankly, and just more disillusionment with the Conservatives, but those main issues are around the NHS and the cost of living. Sewage is not as big, but it still comes up all the time in the sense that there are a lot of people who are really passionate about it in this area.
“I specialise in energy and the environment, so actually it’s a very visceral example of how we’ve been let down when it comes to protecting our environment. So it has become quite personal.
“Our priorities have changed in the sense that our focus has slightly shifted, and they have been refined as new things have come up. So for example with the NHS and health care we’ve seen for a long time how big an issue that is in different ways. We’ve talked a lot in the past about ambulance waiting times, and this is still an issue, for example in January it was a 51 minutes wait if you’ve had a heart attack. Now that’s gone down from two years ago, but it’s still more than a year ago, and it’s way above the target which is something like 18 minutes.
“So there is a failure there. Category 2 is a heart attack or stroke, and 51 minutes is a long time to wait. I know personally that here in Harpenden there is a really great team of First Responders, and I really want to make sure there’s a focus on the system, because speaking to so many people in healthcare, they want to make a difference, and they do care.
“I was a first aider for a few years when I lived in France, so essentially a First Responder, and I had a massive team. We had our own ambulance and there were about 50 of us. Here in Harpenden there’s three of them and I have so much respect for that.
“When I met them at a recent Harpenden Society event one of them was called out to a cardiac incident, and she went out by herself, helped to stabilise the patient and then came back calm and cool as anything. So I have a lot of respect for what they’re doing as volunteers.
“We’ve also done a massive health survey, and there are different pockets that come up, and GP waiting time is still an issue. We’ve kind of normalised waiting a long time for an appointment, calling up at 6am to speak to someone… I’m not sure it should be like that.
“One other thing we’ve picked up on is social care, because all of these issues we’re talking about would be helped by reforming social care. I’ve also been speaking to a lot of people who are suffering from a lack of adult social care, and can’t get the home care they need anymore. Others who are trying to work out how to look after their aging parents in a way that’s affordable, or parents with children who have special educational needs and need extra care.
“By letting down social care we’re not only letting down the patients who need it but we’re also letting down the carers and the whole system. Everyone’s paying the price.”
The cost of living crisis also sadly remains a major issue: “I think at some point the Government said inflation had gone down, but we all knew, we could tell when we looked at our bank balance, or went out and lived our daily lives, that it was not getting any cheaper.”
The proposed expansion of Luton Airport is also still on her agenda: “The outcome of the planning inquiry will be pretty soon, but there’s still room for appeal. There’s a really dedicated group of people who care and understand what will happen, like [campaign group Luton And District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise] LADACAN and the Harpenden Society, residents in Flamstead and Markyate who live near the airport.
“But what we’ve also found is that a lot of people don’t realise what is coming, and because this discussion has been going on for so long they almost think it will be fine. I hope the decision will go our way, but I’m also preparing for what happens if it doesn’t.
“I am definitely against the expansion, not only because of the impact on the noise and quality of life here, the infrastructure, but also because the Climate Change Committee have said we should have no further airport expansion until we’ve got a proper framework in place for measuring the carbon impact for the whole of England.
“If the decision is for expansion, I think we have to be prepared for a big political pushback to appeal to ministers that this has to be overturned because it is not the right thing to do. I hope at that point a lot of people will wake up to the reality of what’s going to change in this area if it does go ahead.
“So I’ve been trying to work with those teams to say, look, I’ll try and build ground support, and I also got Vera Hobhouse, who’s our energy and environmental spokesperson, to speak about it in the Houses of
Parliament on our behalf, so I’ve been trying to raise that issue, but what we really need now is for local people to realise the impact.
“What angers me is the kind of lip service that our local Conservative politicians have given it, Bim [Afolami, Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden] has said he’s against this, and obviously the new Conservative candidate has as well. But this is your party who’s running this government.
“I don’t think Bim has raised this in Parliament, but I do know that Daisy [Cooper, St Albans MP] asked in Prime Minister’s Questions about whether the Government was going to go against its climate change advice and push for airport expansion and Rishi Sunak said basically yes. So when we’ve had that top line from the government that they represent, I think it’s a real joke to go around saying I’m actually against it.”
Sitting MP Bim has been notable by his absence in Harpenden since his decision to fight for the Hitchin seat following the redrawing of constituency boundaries, but is this something the electorate have picked up on?
“So many people have been disappointed in Bim. A lot of people have said to me, I emailed him and he never replied, I didn’t get this, I didn’t hear about this, or he kind of gave me a generic answer.
“Actually, some of them are disappointed he’s not standing because they wanted to vote against him, to show how annoyed they’d been.
“I think he’s a hard worker, just not for the people of Harpenden. They see a lot of things coming out what he’s doing, but not much about what it is in Harpenden, and people have felt that. I’ve been to the last three or four Harpenden Society events because they choose really important topics for local people, whether it’s planning, healthcare or transport, and I haven’t seen one Conservative representative there in that time.”
Because of her presence at local events, are people starting to recognise her when she walks through the town centre or in the village?
“Yeah I have to look decent now when I walk around! Funnily enough at some point I started doing a bit of co-working at Rothamsted and when I signed up the woman said, are you Victoria Collins? She said someone from my team knocked on her door that weekend.
“So I’m definitely starting to get that recognition. Even when I went to the Harpenden Society and spoke to the First Responders, one of them said ‘Oh it’s really nice to meet you, I’ve seen your stuff come through the door’. For me that’s really strange but it’s also quite nice!”
So what are the ultra-local issues she’s picking up on? “The strongest thing that comes through in Harpenden and Wheathampstead is the national stuff. They just want to get the Tories out.
“But there are a few other things. Planning is a difficult one, getting development right, and I know that we as Lib Dems locally have tried to follow the Government’s National Planning and Policy Framework and do things the right way while also listening to the residents here.
“It’s also transport. The other day I got very angry with Hertfordshire County Council in many ways.
“I lost a tyre a few months ago and then had water damage which put my car out of use for a few days. I had offers of lifts but I thought, actually I’m going to go and get public transport – buses, trains, whatever it is – to get around.
“I got a train from Berkhamsted to Watford, and then a bus to Harpenden, which took two hours.
“In Wheathampstead there’s the 366 bus which has had its service reduced, and there are some really harrowing stories of the impact this has had on people there. I went to see someone about this, and worked out that if I didn’t get a particular bus or coach back home then the next one was in an hour and a half, so I had to say, ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to leave a bit early’.
“I got the bus from Wheathampstead to try and get back to Berkhamsted. It was three buses and it took me three and a half hours, going through St Albans, Hemel Hempstead and back up to Berkhamsted. Because one bus was more than a few minutes late it had a massive impact and added an hour onto my journey because I missed all the others.
“Even from St Albans to Hemel, I had to wait 45 minutes for the next bus.
“The whole thing of there being a £2 cap on fares is not true on all services either, for some of them it was a 25-minute journey and I had to pay £4.
“So for me it was really eye-opening just how terrible public transport actually is in Hertfordshire.
“That’s the kind of hyper-local stuff that I’ve been looking at. We’re saying people should drive less and use public transport, but we’ve really got to improve it first.
“In the north-east of England some of the smaller towns with a population of 7,000 get a bus every 15 minutes, so why is Redbourn not getting one when it’s about the same size?
“Why on Earth is it so bad? Why would I wait an hour and a half for a bus when other places are getting them every 15 minutes? A lot of young people can’t afford a car, let alone an electric car, so what about their independence when they get a job?
“I spoke to Johnny Shepherd from The Pudding Stop, who have now opened up a new warehouse in Redbourn, and he said one of their biggest issues is because there’s no public transport people can’t get to us, and we can’t get the staff to come over, so for me that’s actually quite a systemic issue.”
Although a date for the General Election has yet to be announced, at some point Victoria’s campaign is going to have to step up a gear, so how is she preparing?
“Everything I’m doing right now, including a lot of the background stuff, is about scaling, being election ready, getting my team ready, getting our team out there.
“The thing is that it naturally shifts, you get a lot of notifications for hustings and different things.
“I’ve got a really great team who are able to get out our statements and leaflets etc, and then I just keep on doing what I’m doing, but a lot more I guess!
“I mean, it is an exciting time in this new area. I really do believe that Harpenden and the surrounding areas can turn gold. I feel I’m kind of a missing piece between Cheshire and Amersham and St Albans, and we can add to that.
“I think we’re a savvy electorate, these are switched on people who have worked internationally, but also love this local area in the sense and see the impact that we’re having nationally and internationally as a country, then realising that actually the Lib Dems are standing up for that.
“We’re also really good at community politics, so it’s a shift, but that local shift is very important work, people are now used to seeing local Liberal Democrat councillors who work hard for them.
“In places where we tend to win nationally, people often underestimate how much locally we shifted.
“We do have to work hard, we have to work ten times harder than other parties, and I don’t take anything for granted, but it’s an exciting time.”
