A SOUTH Cumbria MP said a new council would help to stop decisions 'falling through the cracks' as he reflected on 2022 and looked ahead to 2023.

Simon Fell was commenting ahead of the move to a unitary system of governance in Cumbria in the new year. 

"Under the current system, you have the county council and the borough council passing the buck between each other," said the Barrow and Furness MP.

"When you remove a layer of government, that can't happen anymore, with one set of councillors for everything."

He addressed the significant reduction in councillor numbers that would occur as a result of the move to a unitary system.

"I would much rather have a smaller, really focused group of councillors that know their jobs back to front and can properly represent constituents than what we have now, which is two levels of government where people can disappear and hide," he said.

He reflected on the past year, referring to the private member's bill that he put forward to give prison governors the discretion to release vulnerable offenders up to 48 hours early as a success. The bill passed its first Commons vote earlier this month. 

The bill is an effort to stop people being released on a Friday and not having time to access services before weekend closures.

"They end up homeless," said Mr Fell. 

"Loads and loads of them reoffend.

"You're on this merry-go-round where it doesn't help keep the prison population down."

He referred to the campaign to save Phoenix House, located in Stephen Street in Barrow, which is among several sites earmarked for closure by the Department for Work and Pensions.

"Hundreds of constituents signed our petition," he said. 

He looked forward to regeneration work on Barrow town centre continuing and said the high street 'really needs our support right now'.

"It's just really good to see spades going in the ground, finally, for some of the levelling up projects that we have," he said.

"We have seen the back of the market start to change.

"It's going to be really exciting over the next two years, seeing these things come out of the ground."