After David Amess's murder, politicians must still meet the public face to face – Steve Cardownie

The killing of Sir David Amess, the Member of Parliament for Southend West, last Friday has prompted the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to announce that police could be called in to guard MPs’ surgeries along with a “whole spectrum” of measures in an attempt to address safety concerns that have emerged.

Floral tributes left outside the Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess was killed on Friday (Picture: Joe Giddens/PA)

With the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, declaring that she did not feel safe when going about her Wigan constituency, it is obvious that these concerns are very real indeed.

Most councillors also have surgeries, more often than not on a weekly basis, where constituents can just turn up without an appointment and raise issues of concern with their elected representative.

Some members of the public can, on occasions, take out their frustration on the councillor sitting opposite them, but this is usually confined to some intemperate language or insult and to my knowledge has never degenerated into acts of violence or even the threat of violence.

In all my 29 years as a councillor, I never felt any danger when meeting constituents at a surgery and while my parentage might have been called into question on some occasions people were generally courteous and understanding.

For some councillors, surgeries are an integral part of the job, providing the opportunity to meet constituents “face to face”, many of whom may not be familiar with the use of emails etc and would prefer to express themselves in person.

This must also be the case with MPs’ surgeries and I trust that any new measures that are introduced will not jeopardise this relationship.

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