A GENERAL election hustings event will be taking place in St Austell on Thursday (June 20).

The evening is being organised jointly by Christians Together St Austell and Churches Together Par and will be held at Mount Charles Methodist Church beginning at 7pm.

Gareth Bray, chair of Christians Together St Austell, said: “So far we have had positive responses from the Labour, Liberal Democrat, Reform UK and Liberal Party candidates. I am awaiting responses from the Green and Independent candidates. The only one to decline is the Conservative candidate, who has also declined to send a party representative.

“The hustings will be a traditional format with questions from the floor. The meeting is being chaired by the Rev Stephen Hatch.

“Whilst the hustings is being organised jointly by Christians Together St Austell and Churches Together Par, everybody is invited to attend.”

Steve Double, who is defending the seat for the Conservative Party, explained to the Voice why he wouldn’t be attending the hustings, saying: “With only a five-week campaign, there is a great deal to cram in. My past experience is that a huge amount of time in the campaign can be taken up with multiple hustings events which are mostly attended by the political activists of the parties, all of whom are already committed to vote a particular way.

“In the past, they played a more valuable role in making candidates accessible and contactable. However, with modern means of communication and accessibility I believe they are much less valuable and I need to balance the demands on my time during a short campaign. Therefore, I decided long before the election was called that in this campaign I would only be doing a very limited number of husting events.

“If any local people wish to ask me any questions, I am always contactable and more than happy to make time available to speak to anyone who wishes to talk with me about the election.”

The candidates standing in the constituency are Steve Double – Conservative, Noah Law – Labour, Joanna Kenny – Liberal Democrats, Stephen Beal – Reform UK, Amanda Pennington – Green Party, Jay Latham - Liberal Party and Angie Rayner - Independent.