I HAD a busy day last Friday starting with breakfast with the Chamber of Commerce.

I was pleased to hear strong objections to the Government's proposal for regional assemblies which would automatically remove a tier of local government in the current system.

Inevitably, the seriousness of Kidderminster's parking problem was mentioned and we look forward to a benefits system that would not mean people were better off on the dole than working.

After that I opened the Resource Centre and Volunteer Bureau at Burgage Lodge, the new home of Community Action Wyre Forest.

I was impressed with the facilities including computers, printers, copiers, binders and laminators, available to charitable groups at a very low cost.

The advice available and the availability of access to computer programmes that will search for possible funding sources were very impressive.

After a surgery, I went to the launch of the Kemp Hospice Appeal for their new building which is so essential for them to continue to provide the uniquely valuable day-care service to patients with long-term illnesses and to their families and carers.

Their ambitious plans to build inpatient hospice facilities also are fully worked out but still await final approval from the Primary Care Trust who have to make the final decision about the site for these essential facilities.

The day concluded with the Bewdley mayor-making - a highly traditional ceremony in the historic Bewdley Guildhall followed by a party in St George's Hall.

On Saturday I went to another truly outstanding amateur theatrical performance, a production of Fame at Stourport Civic Centre, presented by Limelight in association with Splinters Dance Studio.

The cast members were athletic and faultless in their dancing and the talent displayed by the singers was fantastic. Wherever theatre facilities are developed within Stourport they must be readily available to amateur groups as talented as these and other performers I have watched recently.

I have had a useful meeting with Michael O'Riordan, chairman of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. I had the chance of sharing with him many of your letters of distress and complaint about the hospital services we have been forced to use.

I was relieved to learn that he has instructed his executives to work to return short-stay elective surgery to Kidderminster as soon as possible and before the structural changes to E Block are complete. I was pleased to learn also that he has given up his parking spaces which he had automatically expected on arrival before realising the scale of the parking problem in Worcester.