General Election 2024: North West Cambridgeshire set out their vision for the city

The responses are below.

Conservative- Shailesh Vara

"Peterborough is a great city with huge potential. Its strategic location, with easy access to other parts of the country by rail and road, makes it a magnet for new businesses to the city and its surrounding areas.

"More businesses in the constituency of North West Cambridgeshire means more jobs and greater prosperity for the local community.

“I welcome the additional 15,000 jobs in the constituency since 2010 and my commitment to local businesses will continue.

“I am pleased that I was able to help persuade the government to provide funding for an additional ward with 72 beds in Peterborough City Hospital. I will continue to speak up for improved local health facilities, including provision for mental health illnesses.

“Moreover, I am pleased to have helped secure over 200 extra police officers in Cambridgeshire and I will do all I can to ensure that we get our fair allocation of the extra 8,000 officers that the Conservatives have pledged.

“The new Station Quarter, boosted by nearly £50 million from the government will, when completed, be a massive boost to the city and it is vital to keep working with the various parties to ensure its success.

“Young people deserve the best possible start in life and that means working with all those concerned to improve local educational standards.

“There are of course many other issues on which I have previously worked and if re-elected I will continue to pursue them for the benefit of the local community."

Green- Elliot Tong

“If I were elected, I would have three main priorities for Peterborough.“Firstly, I would focus on bringing the water companies back into public ownership in order to clean up our lakes and rivers. Everybody knows that the country's waterways are in a dreadful state. The fact that sewage is regularly dumped into the River Nene, among others, is well documented.

"We can’t trust the water companies to look after our lakes and rivers - we need to take the control of these natural resources back into public hands.

"Secondly, I would fight to improve our public transport system so that we can travel around Peterborough more sustainably. At the moment, getting around the area is both confusing and expensive.

"The Green Party aims to solve these problems by making sure that our public transport is truly public, creating regulations to guarantee that bus services are there to benefit the community, and bringing our railways back into public ownership.

“Finally, I will push for all workers to receive a fair wage. The cost of living crisis is hitting everybody hard, yet big businesses are raking in huge amounts of money.

"We need to do more to recognise the value of UK workers, tightening up their rights to help them receive a fair share of their employers’ earnings.

Labour- Sam Carling

"North West Cambridgeshire has so much potential, and in local government, Labour is working to invest in skills and further education across our region, with the enormous recent achievement of establishing ARU Peterborough making a real difference for local people.

“Our area could be a trailblazer for revitalised schools and pathways into apprenticeships and higher education for all ages – but national decline under the Conservatives is holding us back.

"Residents have been taken for granted locally, with people telling me they’ve never seen their MP in over 30 years of electing Conservatives. If elected, I’d be a visible, accessible representative for everyone.

“It’s time for change. People don’t feel safe, with over ten violent crimes being recorded every single day in North West Cambridgeshire, and 90% of crimes going unsolved. Labour would tackle this with 13,000 additional police and PCSOs, and bring back neighbourhood policing.

“On healthcare, we’ve all faced the 8am scramble for a GP appointment, and Peterborough is a ‘dental desert’ with some families having to travel to Stevenage to get an appointment.

“NHS waiting lists have tripled under the Conservatives, and Labour would fix that by delivering an extra 40,000 appointments every week at evenings and on weekends.

“We deserve better transport services too. Locally, Labour has worked with residents to deliver new bus routes like the number 27 which now connects Peterborough and Stamford via our villages – but with a Labour government, we’d be able to go further with an effective transport network for everyone.”

Liberal Democrat- Bridget Smith

Given the opportunity to respond.

Reform- James Sidlow

Given the opportunity to respond.