by Josie Hannett and Paul Francis

Kent’s MPs say they are looking forward to greater interaction with people in their constituencies in the coming weeks.

It comes the day after Prime Minister Theresa May’s shock announcement a general election will be held on June 8.

Dover and Deal MP Charlie Elphicke does not believe voters will be put off from going to the polls, despite the fact it will fall just over a month after local elections take place.

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“It is a really great chance to talk about the kind of Britain we can build,” he told KMTV outside the Houses of Parliament.

Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tollhurst welcomed the chance for voters to question her about her record in the last two and a half years, while long-running Canterbury and Whitstable representative Julian Brazier insisted he’d never taken voters for granted.

He could face a cross-party candidate drawn from the Green Party, Lib Dems and Labour, after plans for an alliance were announced to try and break the Conservative party’s stranglehold on the seat, which stretches back an estimated 160 years.