The Blackpool Gazette, Lancashire Post and Blackpool Lead invited the candidates standing for the Fylde constituency at the upcoming general election to a hustings in which they fielded questions from voters.
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We've been asked to remind you that we are live-streaming, so yeah, if we can keep the language just a little temperate, that's okay.
00:09And on fracking, we have a question here from somebody who is asking,
00:13can any candidate here today please assure the community that this will not happen here in Lancashire or anywhere else for that matter?
00:23So that's fracking. Can you give a cast-iron commitment it won't happen? Tom?
00:28I apologise for my language as well, because I think that one was aimed at me.
00:35We said we'll ban fracking, we'll have no new coal. We are moving to net zero.
00:40Why would we open new fossil fuel sites?
00:42So when it comes to the quadrennial sites here in the file, that they can clean up those sites and then they can clear off.
00:48Definitely I don't want fracking.
01:01At Christmas I read the voting history of our MP who stood on a fracking site and then voted for fracking.
01:11So I just hope that we're going to run, whoever gets in is fair, is truthful and is voting for how we want to.
01:21But no fracking in the file.
01:23I completely agree and I would be against fracking in the file or anywhere else in the country.
01:32I think what we need is a long-term solution for our energy security and therefore looking at effectively what is not fully proven
01:42and test bed sites for future energy is not the way to give us the rapid deployment of energy security that we need
01:50and we need to be looking more at mini nuclear plants would be my answer.
01:54So no list style plan to allow fracking if there was local support in that unlikely event?
02:00I'm incredibly surprised it's taken this long in the Hustings for someone to bring up list trust actually.
02:04Absolutely no list trust down the line.
02:13So I campaigned against fracking here in Lancashire when I was a council councillor.
02:19A Lancashire council councillor, I voted against it when it came to the council.
02:23Within the Liberal Democrat manifesto it explicitly says we are against fracking and any new coal mines as well.