CONSERVATIVE activists in an Essex constituency have been honoured for their fund raising activities on behalf of the party for each of the past 10 years.

By Graham Dines

CONSERVATIVE activists in an Essex constituency have been honoured for their fund raising activities on behalf of the party for each of the past 10 years.

The Maldon and Chelmsford East association has been listed in the “premier division” for pledging to pay more than £10,000 to the party in 2005.

It raised £11,036 and has also been recognised for 10 continuous years of being among the top fund raising local parties in the UK.

At the next general election, the seat will disappear under wholesale boundary changes in Essex which will give the county an additional MP. Its activists will join one of the two replacement parliamentary constituency associations - Witham which takes in chunks of the existing Braintree, Maldon & Chelmsford East, and Colchester constituencies, and Maldon, which will encompass the remainder of the existing seat plus the more rural areas of Chelmsford West.