CANDIDATES and campaigners are into the final days of canvassing as residents are set to go to the polls for the general election this week.
With candidates from across the political spectrum standing across the area, the Journal's sister paper the Daily Echo posed the same six questions to each in North Dorset, to see what they would say.
Each was given the opportunity to respond, with word limits for each answer to keep answers to the point.
The North Dorset constituency includes many towns and villages in the Journal patch, including Sixpenny Handley, Cranborne and Alderholt, Cranborne Chase, Woodyates and Verwood.
CONSERVATIVE: Simon Hoare
What is your policy on housing?
We do need additional housing to meet the needs of North Dorset. As always I support proposals of the right type in the right place and oppose those which don’t answer aren’t.
What is your policy on the NHS?
I use and support the NHS. I helped save Shaftesbury’s Hospital and have secured additional mental health provision and additional services at Blandford.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
Food/energy security. Well-funded public services. A confident, job creating business sector.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
I want to see more of our young have the life opportunities locally that allow them to stay in North Dorset and raise their own families here.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
A strong desire to avoid a Labour Government or more Lib Dems as they are not seen as having the slightest understanding about what makes North Dorset tick.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
As I have done for the last nine years. In Westminster when the House sits to speak up for North Dorset. In North Dorset the rest of the time working with and for our local communities.
LABOUR: James David Coldwell
What is your policy on housing?
Labour will save the dream of home ownership for younger people in North Dorset with the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation. Labour supports a “brownfield first” approach to housebuilding and will enhance the power of communities to say how housing is built to best service local need.
What is your policy on the NHS?
Under the Conservatives, the NHS is on its knees, with 7.5 million people on waiting lists. As a first step Labour will deliver more appointments, operations and diagnostic tests during the evenings and at weekends. Voting for Labour means voting to cut hospital waiting times and rescue NHS dentistry.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
Cost of living. Labour will prioritise economic growth to make working people in North Dorset better off.
NHS. Labour will get the NHS back on its feet and reduce waiting times for local people.
Climate. GB Energy will generate good jobs, reduce carbon emissions and lower bills.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
North Dorset desperately needs better bus provision. Too many people in our towns and villages are isolated due to poor public transport. As MP I will work with Dorset Council to ensure we seize the opportunity a Labour government would provide for communities to take back control of bus services.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
Voters often raise the sorry state of our public services after 14 years of Conservative government. Crime and antisocial behaviour going unpunished, ambulances not arriving, rivers being pumped full of sewage. This is the cost of Conservative chaos. Only Labour has a plan to turn the page and rebuild Britain.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
If elected I will be a full-time MP, I will live in the constituency and open a constituency office, staffed by local people. I will represent constituents during Parliamentary sessions in Westminster, typically Monday to Thursday, and be in the constituency the rest of the week, holding weekly advice surgeries on Fridays.
LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: Gary Jackson
What is your policy on Housing Policy?
We are committed to building 380,000 homes every year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes, integrating infrastructure and public service delivery into planning. We will make life fairer for people who rent homes, for example by making sure they cannot be told to leave without a good reason.
What is your policy on the NHS?
Our policies include the right to see a doctor within seven days, everyone being able to see an NHS dentist if they need urgent care, more people able to get mental health care sooner and better cancer care. We will work with other political parties to plan better social care.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
I will work with Dorset’s NHS, GP practices, Dorset Council and others in the integrated care system to secure a fair deal for North Dorset. I will promote the investment and development needed to grow our local economy.
I will champion our precious environment, especially to protect our rivers.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
We are too reliant on public sector jobs, hospitality and retail for employment. This means low pay in the face of high and rising costs and it means undervalued education and farming. I want to put an end to the doldrums and put North Dorset on the investment map.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
The needs of Verwood in the south, of the major towns in the centre and north and those of the rural heartlands differ widely. The one common theme is that together with most other public services, the NHS is seen to have gone backwards over the past ten years.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
North Dorset, my home after a career of military service, will always be first in my thinking and actions. I know our system of government and its demands on time and presence to be effective. I will aim for the right balance, home and away.
GREEN PARTY: Ken Huggins
What is your policy on housing?
The Green Party has a Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price charter, and Green MPs will push the government to:
Provide 150,000 genuinely affordable social homes a year.
End ‘right to buy’, keeping social homes available.
End no-fault evictions.
Upgrade existing houses, making them more comfortable and cheaper to live in.
What is your policy on the NHS?
Green MPs will push for:
NHS staff to be paid fairly
Passing the NHS Reinstatement Bill to restrict the role of commercial companies
Investment in primary medical care to enable prevention and early diagnosis
Funding for a new contract with dentists
Funding for improved mental health care
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
Housing. There is a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable and properly insulated/heated houses.
Health. Waiting lists are soaring, while the health and quality of life of many people is declining.
Employment. We need to give young people the job opportunities that will encourage them to stay and live in the county.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
The regeneration of the countryside, reversing the decline in habitat and wildlife. Supporting and funding our farmers to move to regenerative farming, avoiding the use of toxic chemicals and the pollution of our watercourses. Changing what we farm, growing the vegetables and fruit that we presently depend on importing from other countries.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
Older residents tend to be concerned about the NHS. Younger people are more concerned about housing and jobs.
There is a lack of trust in politicians. Years of scandal and corruption have left many hugely disillusioned with politics. Some see little difference between Labour and the Conservatives, and they trust neither of them.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
An MP’s time has to be balanced between the needs of their constituents and the requirement to engage in debates and votes in Westminster. That varies from day to day. There is a regular train service between Sherborne and London Waterloo, and I would spend as little time in London as possible.
INDEPENDENT: Simon Adams
What is your policy on housing?
The Roof for All policy: This groundbreaking policy aims to address housing issues. By partnering with local builders and offering subsidies, we'll create affordable, high-quality homes for all residents. This policy fosters inclusive communities and ensures everyone has a safe, comfortable place to call home. Join the revolution.
What is your policy on the NHS?
The Healthcare for All policy: This visionary approach to NHS. With increased funding, we'll enhance medical facilities, recruit more doctors, nurses, and specialists, and reduce waiting times. My goal is to ensure every resident receives prompt, efficient, and high-quality healthcare. Together, let's build a healthier and happier community.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
Public services, reducing social decline, and veterans' support: Adequate funding and resources for public services are vital for a thriving society. Solving poverty and inequality promotes fairness and inclusivity. Supporting veterans with mental health services and job placement honours their sacrifices and aids in their transition to civilian life.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
North Dorset needs to prioritise economic diversification, job creation, and attracting new industries. Supporting local businesses, investing in infrastructure, and improving public services will enhance the overall quality of life and provide more opportunities for residents to thrive.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
The biggest issue raised to me is social decline. Addressing this requires a comprehensive approach, including investment in community programs, affordable housing, education, and support for vulnerable populations. By promoting social cohesion and providing necessary resources, we can uplift the community and foster a positive and inclusive environment.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
As an Independent candidate and a North Dorset resident, I aim to balance my time between the constituency and Westminster by prioritising constituents' needs and attending local events, while also fulfilling parliamentary duties in Westminster to effectively represent the interests of the constituency.
UKIP: Jeff Taylor
What is your policy on housing?
We need to reduce net immigration, something that would remove the upward pressure on house prices. That would do more to improve the availability of affordable housing, than any half-baked Government-led building scheme would, or any policy of tinkering with the likes of stamp duty and mortgages, or rent caps.
What is your policy on the NHS?
UKIP is committed to an NHS ‘free at the point of delivery’ and we oppose privatisation. But, unlike Labour and other socialist-style parties, we are not ideologically opposed to using private enterprise either within it or to complement it, where it can improve cost effectiveness or efficiency.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
Control immigration. Our local and national infrastructure needs breathing space after excessive over-development.
Bring in family friendly policies, something that would provide the work-force for the future, without draining other countries of their healthcare professionals for example.
Eradicate the nation-crippling ‘net-zero’ costs.
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
Many who attend foodbanks are in such dire straits, that they need additional support to deal with issues such as debt, family breakdown, addiction, poor physical or mental health and may need employment or legal advice. UKIP would ensure that a professional advisor is funded and provided to every foodbank.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
Immigration. Big Corporation-led Britain has become addicted to mass immigration. Instead of training our own young people, we produce our big fat debt-fuelled imperialist cheque book and import labour (already trained - by generally much poorer countries). This lowers wages, divides communities and harms social cohesion.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
I will split my time as required between Westminster and North Dorset, something that will fluctuate as politics unfolds. Now, although my main focus will be on national policy, I will endeavour to be of service locally wherever needed to help bring about a positive result.
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Daniel Woodruffe
What is your policy on housing?
SDP always advocated for the return of state’s capacity to build homes. We’d establish a British Housing Corporation. Establishing skills colleges that would scale Britain’s construction workforce, having powers to make compulsory purchase of suitable sites and certainly a say over building on productive farmland.
What is your policy on the NHS?
At the centre of our policy is a National Care Service, including an innovative Public Volunteer Service (over 65s), that would see annual credits to their own care. In the first term of a parliament – 15 per cent reduction in management and overheads; savings returned to the front line. The current ideological 'ping-pong' (it’s not a business, it’s not a deity – it’s a service) prevents long-term planning.
What are your top three priorities for the area and why?
We cannot afford bus subsidy at scale. However, we could improve on what we have, to make leaving the car on the driveway, logical, with the attendant health benefits, more physical activity (walking) involved. Move the increase in leisure cycling onto cycleways.
A coordinated Raising Aspirations Agenda for school students, actively encouraging them to imagine work lives beyond their personal experience (e.g. technical and engineering opportunities in the armed forces).
Our environment. It looks lovely, on the surface, but are we really optimising Dorset volunteer’s collaboration with landowners, to bring broadleaf trees back to the hedgerow and corners of unproductive land?
What is the biggest change you want to bring to your constituency?
I would want to see North Dorset as a place that would attract more businesses, requiring a skills-based workforce.
What is the biggest issue that residents have raised on the campaign trail?
Housing. I have listened to the concerns of: parents with young families, “They’re building the wrong kind of houses…”, lifelong Dorset residents, “The creeping effect of suburbanisation…” and the retired, “More cars, crammed onto the existing roads..”.
How will you split your time between Westminster and your constituency?
Easy. I have no desire to oil my way around the media studios of London or dine (at another’s expense) at The Cinnamon Club, in Westminster. Being an MP is a job. My employer (the constituents of North Dorset) would see something close to timesheets (certainly, expense sheets!). North Dorset issues are my issues. I sit in traffic jams on the B3081 too.
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