I felt very sorry for the hundreds of residents in the Wye Walley who had their water supply cut for days over Christmas.

I was in contact with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water straight away and to be fair, chief executive Peter Perry personally took command of the incident response.

spoke to him late at night most evenings to get updates. It will be of little consolation for people to know that the issue was caused by a burst water main near Trellech during the cold snap, which I am told proved to be an extremely challenging repair due to the topography of the area.

When work was carried out to restore supplies, airlocks became stuck in the pipes and this meant some customers were affected by low pressure or no water.

The problem has now been resolved and I am grateful to the teams from Welsh Water who worked continuously throughout the whole Christmas period to reconnect properties.

I recently visited Goytre to learn more about an exciting community scheme. The community centre opposite Goytre Fawr Primary School in School Lane is in desperate need of renovation to bring it up to acceptable accessible standards. Over the years, the village has lost many of the clubs and groups that used the centre – not because there is a lack of interest but rather a lack of investment.

I understand people have drifted away to enjoy their interests elsewhere in Usk, Abergavenny, Raglan and Pontypool.

Now efforts are underway to do an asset transfer of the centre to the community of Goytre Fawr via the UK Government’s Community Ownership Fund. The centre has the potential to be a wonderful local resource and I am pleased to offer my full support to this worthy cause.

As we leave behind an eventful 2022, I hope you were able to enjoy a peaceful and relaxing Christmas with your loved ones. We still face a cost of living crisis and the most vulnerable will need the support of this government – and they will get it. There is a strong and unique community spirit which can be found throughout Monmouthshire. I have visited many organisations and attended lots of fundraising events over the past year and the resilience of the people who live here never ceases to amaze me.

I will continue to do all I can to support our wonderful constituency as the local MP and our nation as Secretary of State for Wales.

Happy New Year.