West Suffolk election winner Nick Timothy MP looks back on the election and forward to achieving his goals

For the new MP for West Suffolk, seeing through the pledges that he made on the election campaign trail and working hard for the constituents are absolute musts.

Nick Timothy, who successfully stood for the Conservative Party after Matt Hancock stood down after 14 years as MP, polled 15,814 votes on July 5, ahead of Labour candidate Rebecca Denness who gained 12,567.

The Conservative share of the vote practically halved from 2019, dropping from 65.8 per cent to 34.3.

Of the result, Nick said: “I never took it for granted for one minute. When I was selected (to stand) there were lots of people saying great, this is a safe seat and I was saying, there’s no such thing as a safe seat.

“I think if you treat them as safe seats then people quite often find that they are not quite quickly. Obviously the national context was quite difficult but we worked really hard from the moment I was selected.

“We knocked on thousands of doors. I think we had the right kind of campaign. We were really listening and I think the campaign was the right one and I know we have to deliver on the things that were said.

“One of the things we were told a lot on polling day was ‘you have won my vote because you have knocked on my door, because you are offering a plan for our area’.

“The positive side of the campaign and all the hard work that laid behind that seemed to work.”

Mr Timothy, 44, who moved to the Haverhill area last year, reflected on the General Election result, the worst one ever for the Conservatives and one that saw the Tory majority dwindle in West Suffolk from 23,190 to just 3,247.

He said: “The Conservative Party suffered very badly on Thursday and we need to take some time to address our own shortcomings and the reasons why lots of people did vote for us but lots decided they could not vote for us and that means we have to be really honest with ourselves and work out how we have to change and regain people’s trust.”

Talking to people on the campaign trail, he found the concerns that came up for Haverhill and Newmarket - the two biggest towns in the constituency - were similar.

He said: “People in Haverhill talked a lot about the High Street. I think Haverhill has a lot of really community-minded people, people who work really hard for the area, business leaders who care about the town.

“We’ve got to try and harness that and work together to try and improve things.

“I think there’s a sense that, and this is a sense that you feel in other parts of west Suffolk too, that the town has been neglected and other places have come before it and we have got to try and make sure people don’t feel like that.”

For Haverhill, Mr Timothy sees the future of the High Street (where lots of premises are currently unoccupied) getting housing developments right so that the infrastructure and amenities that are needed are actually provided and the push to have the railway links between Cambridge and the town reinstated, are key areas of concern that he wants to pursue.

He went on to say: “Sometimes when you look at other towns you see they’ve got a hospital or they’ve got a college and that’s basically because that town has always been a bigger place that’s drawn people in from around the county.

“Haverhill has grown so much so quickly that it has not started with those things and it’s harder for a place to acquire things when it’s growing than it is to have those things in a place that was always big.

“I think lots of people love living in Haverhill but things like the High Street need to be better.”

“Newmarket I think, again, it is similar to elsewhere.

“It is a fantastic place to live. Lots of people love living there but that’s not to say there are not challenges and problems and the future of the High Street is definitely one of them.

“The location of the market, definitely crime and anti-social behaviour is an issue and getting development right and making sure we don’t end up with overdevelopment in the wrong places is also a challenge.

“The issues are similar to Haverhill but applied a little bit differently.”

Having had a full induction day at the House of Commons on Monday, Mr Timothy said: “It’s an enormous thing for residents to put their trust in me and I take the responsibility very seriously and in the campaign I have shown that I am a hard worker and a keen listener and I want to carry on in that vein and I want to work hard to try and deliver those things we have talked about in the campaign.”