CHURCHES Together in Wotton are inviting residents of the Cotswold constituency to join in with a General Election Hustings event at Wotton Baptist Church on Wednesday, December 4 at 7.30pm.

All four of the candidates standing for election have confirmed their intention to attend: Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown (Conservative), Alan Mackenzie (Labour), Sabrina Poole (Green) and Liz Webster (Liberal Democrats).

Wotton’s 2015 and 2017 Hustings proved to be a popular way to grapple with the issues at stake in a general election.

Following the same format as previous Wotton Hustings, each candidate will be given two minutes to make a pitch for votes around national policy issues at the start of the meeting and an additional one minute to make a closing statement focusing on local issues.

The main part of the meeting between these statements will consist of pre-submitted questions being asked by members of the public from the floor. The candidates will not see the questions beforehand.

Wotton Baptist Minister Tom Wharin, who will be chairing the event, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to speak up about the real political issues that affect our lives in this area. I’m glad the churches are able to facilitate this event for the community.”

Questions on homelessness, Brexit, the rise of foodbanks, the crisis in education funding and overseas aid were discussed in 2017.

Those with a question they’d like to put to the Cotswold election candidates should e-mail it to wottonhustings@gmail.com along with their name and contact details by Thursday, November 28.

The hustings committee will create a shortlist of questions on popular issues and the submitters of the selected questions will be invited to ask them from the floor of the event.