On Wednesday, MP Catherine Fookes hosted her first 'Coffee with Cath' workshop, inviting Monmouth residents to discuss local issues. While attendees engaged in healthy discussions about local politics, there was noticeable concern over the absence of younger voices.

The workshop began with discussions about what constituents love about Monmouth and went on to explore issues such as transport and the environment.

Participants seemed overwhelmingly optimistic, and the conversations remained positive and respectful. Catherine said, “I was actually really pleased with how balanced people were and how different, you know, people just listened to each other. You know, I think there's a lot of polarisation in politics at the moment”.

Catherine went on to ask Monmouth constituents what their most important issues were. It seemed that the health of Monmouth High Street was a top priority.

Catherine noticed this, saying, “I've got some ideas about what we might do on those empty buildings. I'm really pushing for the landlords to actually get their planning in and get moving instead of just stalling all the time.”

Monmouthshire County was recently granted £24,000 of funding as part of the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund for community projects. It has yet to be confirmed whether Monmouth would receive any of this funding.

Beyond this, people asked for more bus options for the town and hoped to have a National Express route through the town again one day. Pollution in the River Wye was also a point of conversation, which is a focus of Catherine’s work in Westminster.

Polarising national issues were surprisingly absent from the conversation. Illegal immigration was raised once but dismissed as not important to Monmouth. This may reflect the rural demographic or, perhaps, a lack of diversity in political views.

Noticeably, ‘Coffee with Cath’ had a lack of representation of anyone under 30 years old, with most attendees being retired or semi-retired. One attendee said, “I think many of us are very, very much aware we do not represent everybody in Monmouth…and I think that's acknowledged by this”.

Another said, “I think we also need to get the views of the young people in the field as though they've got a stake in what's happening in their local community”.

Catherine was aware of the lack of younger people and remained keen to hear more from them, she said, “ I'm just thinking I might try and organise one of these specific ones to make sure we can get young people to come along at the right time or go to where they are, go into school, perhaps and do one”.

Catherine has been clear that this is only the first of more meetings in other towns in the county.

She said, “We obviously want to go to the other towns. So, I definitely don't think we've captured what the concerns are in Abergavenny or Caldicot, for example, but we will be doing that. I'm definitely going to go there”.