Funding for New Ferry gas explosion

Jake Berry MP (Tory minister for the so-called Northern "Powerhouse") has advised cash strapped Wirral Council to use its own resources and reserves to help victims of the huge explosion that tore through the centre of New Ferry, Wirral earlier this year. 33 people were injured 2 seriously, many businesses were destroyed, a further dozen shops and services put out of action and 30 families displaced from their homes. With so much of the town centre destroyed, shoppers have stopped going to New Ferry and the surviving businesses are suffering from loss of trade and facing financial ruin. Insurance companies have been very slow to act and indeed reluctant to pay out (with nobody having yet been found guilty of causing the explosion), leaving residents and businesses without sufficient financial support with which to rebuild their lives. Many people are not only suffering financially, but also emotionally with depression and the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The government has shockingly refused to call the explosion a NATIONAL INCIDENT, what on earth does constitute a "national incident" then ?

Despite pleas for funding assistance from local MPs, businesses and residents, the government has turned its back on this devastated community, citing rules and regulations for not offering any disaster relief funding to help those affected. New Ferry, Wirral - a deprived community in a Labour controlled authority - is being treated entirely differently to other communities in the UK that have faced similar, and seemingly less significant, disasters.

Jake Berry's refusal of assistance is an absolute disgrace and makes a mockery of the title Northern Powerhouse. New Ferry should be treated the same as other communities that have recently suffered (as should every community in the country should a similar disaster befall them), and the rebuilding of its centre should be funded by the British government A.S.A.P

If you agree that New Ferry (and every other community in the country affected by such an economically damaging disaster) should be treated fairly and given government support, please, please sign this petition, thank you