I WAS delighted to welcome the news last week of the announcement by the Government’s Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, of proposals to introduce new measures to tackle the unfair practices in the sale of leasehold houses.

This practise is an extortion racket which has exploited home buyers with unfair agreements and spiralling ground rents. These practices are unjust, unnecessary and need to stop.

This is an issue I have campaigned on a lot in Parliament, through my work as a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform, as it is a growing problem for many new-build communities like North Swindon, where developments have gone on sale with leaseholds tying people into spiralling ground rents which can sometimes see large increases year-on-year.

In the past, I have also organised public meetings alongside Cherry Jones from Home To Home Property Management. She has worked tirelessly to ensure local residents are not disadvantaged by these types of agreements.

While we need to do all we can to support those who are disadvantaged by these practices, I am glad to see this is something new home buyers can be protected against.

There was further good news this week as BMW announced it would produce the new electric Minis at the company’s Cowley plant in Oxford. This is great news for Swindon, as our plant will supply the parts.

During the referendum campaign, many suggested both BMW and Honda would stop building cars in this country.

This was nonsense. We have seen Honda reconfirm its commitment to its Swindon global production hub through a further £200m investment, and now BMW has announced significant investment plans for its future locally with the new battery-electric cars beginning production in 2019.

Our decisive action to rebalance our economy, support business and deliver a Brexit that embraces the opportunities of a growing global economy is paying dividends.

The UK continues to be the number one European destination for foreign investment, helping deliver growth and record employment.

Finally, my team and I enjoyed an evening at Gala Bingo last week as I nervously called out the numbers for their charity round - it is harder than you’d think.

The site at Greenbridge can hold 3,000 people and is very popular for parties. While the venue faces challenges from online competition it was great to see there is still a large number of people who play in person. If you haven’t tried it, I would recommend it.

  • Due to a technical error Russell Holland’s column in the Advertiser yesterday appeared with David Renard’s picture. We apologise for any confusion caused