Plymstock Matters with

Councillor Rebecca Smith

And just like that, it’s February and 2023 has well and truly started! I hope your year has got off to a good start. A busy few weeks across Plymstock and beyond for me but some positive stories in among some of the trickier issues landing in my inbox and on my Facebook page.

Firstly, I want to give you an update on the campaign to get a Post Office back in the centre of Plymstock. As you may know, the Broadway Post Office had to close in January as the newsagent it was run from was closed by its owners, Morrisons. Since then, Plymstock councillors and our local MP have been lobbying the Post Office to make sure they deliver a replacement service.

However, the Post Office rely on someone or some business applying to run the new Post Office service. If you know anyone who is interested, you can visit the website www. runapostoffice.co.uk and search for Plymstock for more information. It can either go into a new store or an existing shop. For any further help and support, please email me on rebecca.smith@plymouth.gov.uk. It’s a busy Post Office in a high footfall area so has the potential to be an exciting venture…

Are you a local community group in Plymstock, keen to get some additional support and maybe even access to some funding?! If so, there is a drop-in event by Plymouth Octopus Project - POP+ at Plymstock Library on February 21 between 9.30am and 12.30pm and it is not to be missed! We’re also keen to learn about the groups that exist across our community so if you can’t make it but want to find out more, please feel free to email me and I’ll link you up.

When you’re a local councillor it can sometimes take longer than hoped to get success with some projects. The Furzehatt Road zebra crossing is a classic example that took a whole lot of work, by a wide group of people over a 50 year period to get something done!

However, that puts the work it has taken to sort out new lighting on Breakwater Road into context. For a year or so (if not longer), I’ve been trying to get someone to take responsibility for the lack of and broken street lights on Breakwater Road but it took time to sort out ownership and get correspondence to the right people. At the start of the year, I finally had word from Royal Mail that they are going to install 24 LED lampposts along Breakwater Road. I am really pleased about this as it will make it much safer for people to walk that route from Oreston as well as to and from all the businesses located in the area. Huge thanks to the local residents who first asked me to get involved and also to Royal Mail for coming up with a solution. Should be installed in March. Watch this space…

Talking about the issue of safety, the end of January saw a speech in Parliament which delivered on one of the city’s Violence