With the runners and riders in next week’s election facing off for the first time, Charlie Harman reports back from Monday night's Ashford election hustings...

Lined up facing a firing squad of constituents and councillors, the five candidates shared some friendly chit-chat ahead of the verbal sparring of an election hustings.

Each hopeful was out to pick up undecided voters and prove a strong voice in front of more than 200 people at Revelation St Mary’s.

Damian Green, as the constituency’s Conservative MP for 22 years, fended off questions over the government’s handling of Brexit and the NHS.

He also refuted “scare stories” suggesting America will play a key role in the NHS’s future by saying: “The NHS is not for sale.”

When Mr Green later asserted “we can, across the country, build 40 new hospitals”, a number of the audience laughed to which Labour candidate Dara Farrell said “it was all going so well.”

Independent candidate Susannah De Sanvil backed up Mr Green on the scare story claims and aired her intention to increase investment in primary care providers.

However the Green Party’s Mandy Rossi said: “There’s no smoke without fire.

“I admire Damian’s commitment that the NHS won’t be sold but there are things we don’t see going on behind the scenes.

“We’ll completely roll back privatisation - the NHS is definitely safe in the Green Party’s hands.”

Regarding healthcare, all of the candidates agreed that the William Harvey Hospital’s A&E should be saved.

Mr Farrell emoted: “That’ll be the easiest question we have all evening, of course we need the A&E for our continuing growth.”

He cited the need for “three world-class A&Es and hospitals in east Kent, and an improvement in the services we’ve got".

Ms De Sanvil and Ms Rossi both showed concern for the impact the closure would have on rural communities and Romney Marsh residents.

Liberal Democrat prospect Adrian Gee-Turner, whose career has been within the medical supply industry, had an interesting perspective on the proposed closures.

He said that such closure warnings are frequent across the country and stated “it’s a cry for help from local trusts asking for money".

He said: “They know it’s very important for constituents in the area and politicians, where they can say they campaigned and succeeded in keeping these services. It’s absolutely a key issue but there’s no chance it’ll close.”

Mr Green refuted the Lib Dem candidate's suggestions, saying: “This isn’t a put-up job for me or anyone else to get support.

“I would of course fight for Ashford services.”

The climate issue was also strongly debated on party lines, with Ms Rossi revelling in the opportunity.

She noted: “All our policies are underpinned by our commitment to the environment."

In particular, she pointed to the Green policies of planting 700 million trees by 2030 and increasing natural flood defences.

Ms De Sanvil, the only person without a party manifesto, wants to make it illegal to transport waste across the world and promote subsidies for renewable energy sources.

Meanwhile, Mr Gee-Turner called it the most important issue, praising the EU for aiming to ban single-use plastics by 2021.

Mr Farrell said he’d previously voted at KCC to enact a ‘climate emergency’ and defended the Labour plan for a “green industrial revolution”.

Mr Green highlighted the Conservative pledge to eliminate coal use by 2025 and introduce more car charging points.

Moving onto Brexit, Mr Gee-Turner said he agreed with the Brexit Party and Ukip in that “what we’ve ended up with from Boris looks nothing like what we began with”.

Ms Rossi said: “We’re three-and-a-half years on, we’ve learnt a lot in that time and it’s got very confusing. We should put it back to the people now we know so much more.”

Mr Farrell criticised the game of “our Brexit’s harder than your Brexit”, saying it is distracting from other policy areas.

Mr Green, who supported Remain at the referendum, said: “If you aspire to be a politician in this country, you have to be a democrat and sometimes you have to accept that sometimes you lose.”

All five hope they’ve done enough to convince attendees to put a cross by their name next Thursday.

• A report in the Kentish Express on November 21 stated that Susannah De Sanvil, who is standing as an independent candidate in Ashford, was a member of Ukip. We wish to make it clear that she is no longer a member of the party.

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