Frankie came out with me today to deliver election addresses to the last few roads in Pound Hill North.  There are two polling districts in PHN and we have delivered to every house in one of them and about 85% of houses in the other one. I only missed out a couple which had signs saying "absolutely no leaflets at all" or had no letter box whatsoever. Overall we have reached about 93% of the electorate with this election address, which is quite good I think.

Surprisingly, the party's contact rate with voters is probably higher in Pound Hill than it is in Broadfield.  I think that if we put in more work here we could make it a lot closer than it has been. At the very least we could ensure that the Tories have to work here too instead of treating it as a banker – although I have heard that my Tory opponent has been out knocking on doors with his parents this year.

I don't know why we do not work it more. Despite the name it is not very hilly, and except for the small number of places in the rural North of the ward its quite compact. Compared to Broadfield it is a doddle to get around.

One thing I did notice is that the place smells very pleasant as a result of the number of flowers and flowering bushes in the front gardens.  Mind you , all those flowers are going to take a lot of watering soon. With a hosepipe ban in force it is going to be heaven for any determined curtain-twitchers there may be!

In the past, the water problems in Pound Hill have been more to do with flooding than with shortages. There is also a lot of concern about travellers.  Walking around there, it seems like half the houses have their front gardens completely block-paved or covered with tarmac.  I do wonder if that is at all related to either the traveller or flooding issues, or just a co-incidence…

Traffic is the other major concern in Pound Hill. I have been there mostly outside peak hours, to avoid being stuck in queues, but I noticed that outside the peak hours you can hardly move for driving school cars in some roads.  In Milton Mount Avenue today I saw three learners all doing three-point turns at the same time.