Chelmsford City Council is drafting plans to upgrade Dovedale Sports Centre in the Old Moulsham area of the city. The Lib Dem-led council is keen to hear local views about this and has just launched a consultation (running until Sunday 13 February) to help shape any future improvements.

The site, which the council shares with Chelmsford College, was opened in 1974 and has had minimal investment over the last few decades. It is used by the college during the day and managed by Chelmsford City Council for public use after 5pm on weekdays, with full access at weekends and college holidays.

The Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday, 15th January to start its work on the final agenda for Spring 2022 Conference, which will be taking place virtually via the Hopin platform.

If you haven't yet registered for Conference, I would recommend doing so here.

We've had a few departures from the FCC in the last few months and welcomed two new members. Jennie Rigg ceased being the English Party's Representative to the FCC and Jenni Lang stepped down as the Scottish Party Representative after becoming the Convenor of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. I would like to place on record our thanks for their service to the FCC, they will be missed, and we would like to wish them all the very best for the future. We welcomed Matt McLaren as our new English Party Rep and Paul McGarry as our new Scottish Party Rep to the committee.

Chelmsford City Council has announced its latest round of grants for the hospitality and leisure industry, and the Lib Dem-led Council has announced a further round of special grants to provide FREE membership of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Said Council Leader Stephen Robinson, "We know that many local businesses have been really struggling over the last two years and the City Council is doing what it can to help. The Council is also developing a partnership with the five other District Councils in north Essex to pool resources to help more businesses."

The headline "two new MPs so far in this Parliament" is a welcome one. Winning, especially winning with record swings, is what we all want.

Underneath the headline is a lot of hard work, plenty of tough decisions, and a drive to improve. We should all be thankful to our activists, staff and supporters.

The Government is being urged to back a National Landlord Register as part of the Renters' Reform Bill. Chelmsford Council's Leader, Lib Dem Stephen Robinson, has written to Secretary of State for Housing, Michael Gove.

Cllr. Robinson said, "You don't need reminding that we are in the middle of a housing crisis, with supply not meeting anything like the demand. In the private rented sector, sadly, this often means poor quality housing at sky-high prices and exploitation of tenants. Please help local Councils to do more to address this problem."

A series of free to attend, direct engagement events taking place across the East of England designed to hear what you, our members, have to say.

Each event will be opened via live stream on a giant screen by an independent political commentator. Adam Boulton (until recently Editor at large for Sky News) will open the first roadshow on Thursday 17 February in Bury St Edmunds.

You may remember, last November, taking part in a survey on members' views on Brexit and the party's campaigning on the future of UK-EU relations. Thanks to everyone who participated - 6,500 members, more than any previous survey of this type - and thanks to Greg Foster and Dan Schmeising at party HQ who organised it on behalf of the Federal Policy Committee. This article gives you the results.

After the disappointment and failure of the 2019 general election, an independent post-mortem was carried out into what went wrong. The findings of the Thornhill Review set a broad and challenging reform agenda for the party, which we've made good progress on implementing so far.

On the role of the Federal Board itself, the Thornhill Review found that:

FPC members started the year bright and early with our first meeting last week. We cancelled our December meeting so we could all focus on North Shropshire, so this was our first meeting since November.

Big areas of focus for FPC this year will be further work on our messages and key policies to support them, leading up eventually to the Manifesto for the next General Election; and our substantial programme of working groups developing policies in politically useful areas, to bring to autumn conference.

In 2021 we achieved something we've not achieved since 1993: winning two Parliamentary by-elections in the same year off the Conservatives. We start this new year with a larger Parliamentary Party than any of us would have dared dream of a year ago. (A winning run that has continued with the first council by-election of this year too - congratulations to now councillor Andrew Dunkin who won a seat from Labour from third place.)