Jon met with local people who are concerned about the roads around Nixon Court, specifically Putney Road near Homebase.

A student from the University of Leicester, Jason Morris, contacted his local Councillor, Patrick Kitterick. Jason, who uses a guide dog, had faced a lot of difficulties crossing the roads near Nixon Court.

Councillor Kitterick stated: “The difficulties faced by Jason on a daily basis when crossing the roads were so bad that his guide dog had to go for re-training as its confidence had suffered.”

Following an initial site visit a solution of putting in a Zebra Crossing on Putney Road has been suggested. Representatives of the Council’s Transport Department, University Estates, as well as Jason will be at the site visit on Friday.

Jon has spoken out in Parliament against decisions to withdraw GCSE Gujarati and A-Level Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, and possibly Urdu and Arabic.

The decision comes as exam boards have been assessing their provision of ‘lesser-taught’ languages at GCSE and A-Level, and will have a huge impact on Leicester.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that from all the Local Authorities in the country, Leicester has the highest proportion of Gujarati speakers: 36,000 people in Leicester speak the language.

The decision to remove the qualifications will affect children, young people and adults who study for them.

The withdrawal will also affect Bengali, Punjabi and possibly Urdu and Arabic speakers who study for A-Levels. Such courses are offered by community centres, Gurdwaras and Mosques around the city, and will affect everyone enrolled.

Jon Ashworth MP visited the University of Leicester today to discuss politics and being an MP with politics students at the University.

The visit, organised by the University’s Politics Department, gave students an opportunity to learn more about the role of an MP, what work is entailed in both Parliament and the Constituency, and also gave them the opportunity to grill Jon on his views as the local MP.

The session had a particular focus on what work Jon does in the Constituency, fitting in with the students’ module theme.

Speaking after the event, Jon said: “I really enjoyed my session at the University of Leicester. I’ve done this Q&A before and I always get tough questions from students! It’s also useful for me to know what issues young people care about, and you can only find out by actually talking with them and listening to what they have to say.”

Jon visited Highfields Food Bank today which he helped to establish along with local agencies.

As the MP for the Highfields area Jon has initiated regular meetings of community organisations and agencies. It was at one of these meetings that the need for a food bank in the north of the Highfields area was raised.

Jon stated: “Working together in the community we soon realised there was desperate need for a food bank in North Highfields. That’s why my office, working with the Highfields Centre and the Race Equality Centre, established this food bank in the north of Highfields. The food bank opened at Wesley Hall in early 2014 and moved to the Highfields Centre in June 2014.”

Jon Ashworth led a bid to Spinney Hills Ward Community Fund for £1,000 in order to set up and start the food bank. Jon’s office has also secured donations from religious festivals (Vaisakhi), Unite the Union, local Mosques (Darus Salam, Masjid-e-Baitul Mukarram), community organisations (Leicester Welfare Trust) and Labour Party members.

Jon Ashworth, Labour MP for Leicester South, visited Featherstone Drive, Eyres Monsell, following his successful campaign for parking bays installed on the street.

Jon was contacted in August 2012 by local resident Sarah Chalmers, who complained that the lack of parking facilities was affecting residents and becoming dangerous for disabled pedestrians. After visiting the site to inspect the problem for himself, Jon along with Councillors Palmer and Cleaver campaigned to have proper parking bays created on the road.

The City Council agreed, and residents are now successfully able to park their cars in the designated bays.

Speaking before the visit, Jon said: “I’m really pleased with the outcome of this campaign. When I visited Sarah and her neighbours back in 2012, it was clear that they were very unhappy with the parking situation. Cars were parked on the pavement and grass verges, which was very difficult for people with wheelchairs, mobility scooters and pushchairs, and pedestrians were being forced to walk on the road. It was clear that something needed to be done.”