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)
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'd like to ask the people up there what they have done on a voluntary basis to improve the lives of the people of the Faroe Islands.
00:13I'm not talking about your jobs, I'm talking about voluntary work.
00:18I told you the public asked the best questions. I've done a loser goes you first on this one. I apologise in advance for picking Andrew.
00:26I'll answer that, but I do think that's fairly unfair on the boys who probably haven't lived here as long as me.
00:34So I have done a lot of volunteering. I was instrumental in building Parkview View for the children of Lytham.
00:42I helped start Lytham in Bloom. I've volunteered on many things. I'm always volunteering anything to do with the youth.
00:53I like to volunteer and do that, but it's a great question because it's a great question for me because I've lived and worked here and done a lot of volunteering.
01:01It may be a little unfair for the boys who don't actually live here.
01:05I think what a lot of people have forgotten about this constituency, including your own confirmation emails by the way, is that it's not just Fylde Borough.
01:25It's also Wyre in Portland. I have been an enterprise advisor at a local high school, helping to develop their careers provision for young people.
01:47That was in fact in the wider Fylde that was in Fleetwood. That was a huge opportunity to look at how we were giving young people more sense of the opportunities that they could have.
01:58It's why something is really important to me. However, I also volunteered to help pick up the Fylde for seven years before I went full-time.
02:06I was a Royal Air Force Reservist and that was all about defending the entire country.
02:11Fylde is definitely very much part of that.
02:22You certainly got us thinking there. The current boundaries of Fylde, I'll be straight with you, I haven't done any voluntary work in the current boundaries of Fylde.
02:31But in the previous boundaries of Fylde, in the Lear and Cotton, and I mentioned earlier how I represent that area and I'm right on the border of the Preston and Fylde.
02:39I have been a football coach. I've also coached some boxing as well.
02:43There are sorts of things I've done. I think engaging youngsters into sport is a really fantastic way of building their character, building their sense of teamwork.
02:58The teams that I coached weren't going to be sort of premier elite footballers, but seeing them develop in their confidence was really quite fulfilling.
03:10So that's one of the voluntary things I have done in a former part of Fylde.
03:15I am not going to try and jump hoops backwards. I'm trying to sell a story here that would be disingenuous because it would go in the face of everything I said earlier about integrity and honesty.
03:30And I believe that you should be honest with the public that you are seeking to represent.
03:35I live in Lancashire. I'm a proud Lancastrian. My connections with the Fylde, like I said, go all the way back to when I was a wee young lad.
03:42Do I currently live in the Fylde? No, I don't. I live in Lancashire.
03:46I would obviously move to Fylde if I was elected. Very, very much an area that I have loved.
03:53And it's wonderful to see my son going around the parks and places I used to go around, if anything, just to avoid watching my dad play cricket.
04:02By volunteering work, I've volunteered in many, many different roles in many, many different places, including we used to do an old age pensioners Christmas party in our local pub when I was the county councillor where I used to serve dinner to all of our pensioners.
04:18Part of it was about tackling loneliness at Christmas time, particularly people who had no one around them.
04:25Volunteered for key events with the Royal British Legion in the area around putting on events for our veterans to make different places, to mark different points in history.
04:36I've done all sorts of things over the years. I used to fundraise for Derby and House Children's Hospice, a particular subject very, very close to my heart due to family connections there.
04:46And it's also about the role of a politician is about supporting the voluntary sector as well.
04:51It's not just about the volunteering that you do. It's about how you empower and support the voluntary communities that you support.
04:56And I'm right here in the Vale as police commissioner. A lot of the money that the police used to seize off criminals used to go into different police pots to pay for different things.
05:06The Treasury takes a 50% top slice, as they do with nearly every income stream, any government that's Treasury can do.
05:12But I decided that actually all of that money that was seized off criminal gangs was seized because it was a profit that was made by exploiting the people and areas of Lancashire.
05:25It was made profit from selling drugs or using young kids to do drugs running.
05:30It was made as criminal gangs that worked in areas and caused anti-social behaviour and violence.
05:36It was about the way in which gangs use sexual violence to intimidate women into sex work.
05:43You've got me slightly off topic here, haven't you?
05:46The key point is that that money was made with the profits of criminality.
05:52And I wanted to give that money back to the local community through volunteer community projects that can help rebuild communities that have been affected by crime.
06:02But also divert kids and other people away from a potential life of crime.
06:07We overrode £86,000 in grants from that money seized from criminals to support community projects and community safety projects right here on the Fylde.
06:15Thank you very much.