The Stroud MP's weekly column.

There was absolutely terrible news at the weekend when a 15-year-old boy fell to his death at Tricorn House.

My heart goes out to the family for their loss. There are no words of comfort at times like this but I know they can see the outpouring of love for their son and shared sadness in our communities.

The family is right to express concerns that something must be done about this building that has lain empty for two decades. My urgent priority was to secure the building so that there can be no further incidents there and I spent the weekend speaking to people to try to address the access points.

It must be abundantly clear that nobody should enter or attempt to enter the building. I also spoke to the owner of the site and separately to the developers to make this point and at the time of writing, I understand security work is taking place with the support of the council. The police will also patrol the area.

I also know the wider community wants to see action. I have received emails all weekend about the building from local people and there is a petition to knock it down.

I have long called for Tricorn House to be developed without more delay. Whether that is demolition or a transformational redevelopment, I don’t mind but let’s see some progress. I’ve said before that I think the community should be involved given that people have been waiting over 20 years to see the site improved.

The devastating loss of life there on Friday will make this even more pressing.

The police are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the death. I would urge everyone to please respect the job officers need to do and the feelings of the family, and not speculate about what happened.

Many of you may have seen that I did not support the Government last week over the extension of coronavirus regulations until at least 19th July.

I fully understand the difficult decisions the Prime Minister must make but we have one of the most successful vaccine programmes in the world and data is showing the continued effectiveness of those jabs against all variants of the virus.

We must live with Covid – that’s for sure and it’s time to do just that otherwise we run the risk of not taking full advantage of all the good work the vaccine experts, the government and the NHS has done.

Infections are rising but there is presently little evidence hospitalisations or deaths will reach the heights they did when there was no vaccine. Other countries, who have vaccinated fewer people, are opening up.

I believe the Prime Minister’s instinct is the same as mine and I hope 19th July will see the end of restrictions so that people can go to concerts, get married, meet as many people as they like and get a pint at the bar.

Unless there is hard evidence that people are getting seriously ill and our NHS will be overwhelmed, I will not vote for another extension.