The Green Party in Kent held its general election launch beside a river.

The location - alongside the River Medway between the town centre bridges in Maidstone - was significant, as the candidates took water samples to emphasise exactly how polluted our planet had become.

The party is fighting in all of Kent’s 18 seats at the election on July 4 and six of the candidates were at the launch event, along with several dozen placard-waving supporters.

Stuart Jeffery, Maidstone’s newly elected leader of Maidstone council, was in a confident mood, introducing himself as “the next Green MP for Maidstone and Malling.”

All the candidates emphasised the need for change and, after conceding that Labour was bound to win the next election, said that left voters in Kent free to vote with their conscience - by which they meant vote Green - without fear that it would let the Conservatives back in.

Mandy Rossi, the candidate for Ashford, said: “We do not see Labour offering the real bold action that needs to be taken - taken for the climate, taken for public services, taken for our young people, who need a future that they can rely on and trust.”

John Hurst, the candidate for Tunbridge Wells, confidently predicted: “At national level, we will be the opposition that will keep Labour honest.”

Speaking of how broken the country is, Hannah Temple, the candidate for Faversham and Mid Kent, said: “In the place where I live, people tell tales of queuing from two in the morning to get an NHS dentist. They tell tales of developing extreme asthma because of 24/7 traffic outside their door.”

Laura Manston, the candidate for Sevenoaks, said: “We’ve got over 800 councillors in England and Wales at all levels of governance and people are finding that when they vote for a Green candidate they got a hardworking, competent and honest candidate. The Green Party has the best policies, the only policies to take us forward into this uncertain future.”

Rebecca Drake Hopkins, the candidate for Gravesend, said: “People are really excited about having a Green candidate, about having an alternative. Somebody who is going to represent what the needs of the community are. Somebody who has the independence to speak up for the local community.”

Stuart Jeffery, the candidate for Maidstone and Malling, said: “We need bold action to change our society. But not just our society. We’ve got to look outside too. We’ve got serious problems in places like Palestine and Sudan. We need to bring peace to those places.”

Their speeches were punctuated by honks of support from passing motorists on the town’s bridges and by loud cheers from their supporters.

Separately, Mr Jeffery has launched a Crowdfunder campaign to raise funds to support his election bid.

He said: “We are not funded by big corporations or unions (or beholden to them either), we are funded by supporters and members. Please help if you can.”

A link to his donation page can be found here.

And the state of the River Medway? The Greens’ testing revealed it to contain around 20 parts of nitrates per million. Ms Temple said: “That’s not good, but it’s not terrible. It’s around 30 parts per million when we have to get seriously worried.

“However we did not carry out tests for phosphates or E.coli. So we don’t know what they would show.”

Other candidates who are known to be standing in the election are:

Ashford: Damien Green (Con), Tristam Kennedy Harper (Reform UK), Sojan Joseph (Lab), James Ransley (Consensus), and Adam Rowledge (Lib Dem).

Tunbridge Wells: Hassan Kassem (Ind), Neil Mahapatra (Con), Mike Martin (Lib Dem), and Hugo Pound (Lab).

Faversham and Mid Kent: Mel Dakwnins (Lab), Maxwell Harrison (Reform UK), Hannah Perkin (Lib Dem), Lawrence Rustem (British Democrat Party), and Helen Whately (Con).

Sevenoaks: Adam Hibbert (SDP), James Milmine (Reform UK); Denis Scott-McDonald (Lab), Richard Steatfeild (Lib Dem) and Laura Trott (Con).

Gravesend: Adam Holloway (Con), Matthew Moat (Reform UK), Ukonu Obasi (Lib Dem), and Lauren Sullivan (Lab).

Maidstone and Malling: Mark Alexander (SDP), Maureen Cleator (Lab), Helen Grant (Con), Dave Naghi (Lib Dem), and Paul Thomas (Reform UK).