Paul Bartlett has been an Ashford Borough Councillor since 1999 and a Kent County Councillor for Ashford Central since 2017.

Paul met with myself and Service Manager Alison Fraser to find out more about United Response and to hear more about our plans for a community allotment and activity centre.

Paul was very impressed by everything we do already and very enthusiastic about how these plans could offer a real boost to the community. Paul then met local resident Paul, who receives outreach support from United Response and has a regular job at the service, supporting our incredibly talented Activity Coordinator Keith Oney to look after our extensive gardens.

After a quick tour of our Activity Centre and meeting some of the people we support, Councillor Paul simply asked: “How can I help?”… and Alison and I did not miss a beat with our to-do list!

Paul offered to contact Ashford Council departments and committees who could support us going forward. We discovered there is a Tree Protection officer at the Council that we would benefit from connecting with, as well as finding out the great benefits of contacting the Planning department at these early stages.

We were also pleased to discuss health and social care more generally with Paul and explain some of the challenges that the sector faces, working together on innovative and creative opportunities to face those challenges head on.

With our common aim to facilitate positive outcomes, create meaningful engagement and meet people’s needs in the Ashford community, we hope this will make a wonderful collaboration to achieve our common endeavour.

And earlier this year, we had a visit from Ashford MP and former deputy prime minister Damian Green, who has spoken in parliament multiple times in favour of linking social care pay rates to NHS pay rates.

We look forward to working more with Paul and Damian in the future.

Find out more about green projects across United Response
  • Senet Yohannes is Area Manager for United Response services in Kent.