Council election hustings in New Galloway turned out a rip-roaring success on Monday evening.
An audience of around 70 packed into the CatStrand to fire questions at candidates.
Six of the seven election hopefuls turned up for the Glenkens Community Arts Trust-organised event with Labour’s Graham Trickey unable to be present.
Speaking afterwards GCAT chairman and hustings convener Alan Smith was delighted to see local democracy in action.
He told the News: “GCAT decided to host this meeting as there were a large number of new faces amongst the candidates. We simply felt that the voters needed to know who they were voting for.
“At this level of local politics there is a widely held belief that party affiliations are less important. So it was key that the electorate can judge the personality and views of the individual candidate they are voting for.
“In this regard the meeting went well – and the consensus from the audience was this had been a valuable aid in allowing them to make their decision.”
Anthony Bird (Lib Dems), Dougie Campbell (Independent), John Denerley and Susan Murdoch (Conservatives), Andy McFarlane (SNP) and Laura Moodie (Greens) handled questions on key issues.
Local housing needs, jobs, the environment and providing opportunities for young people to live and work within their local area all featured.
Concerns over whether Dumfries and Galloway had already “done its bit” on renewables and whether industrial scale forestry was leading to the permanent loss of conventional farming businesses were also raised.
And one person asked if forestry developers should contribute funds via community benefit payments as windfarm developers do.
Mr Smith said: “I had several comments and emails after the event from attendees thanking GCAT for organising the event. Some also said that on hearing and seeing the candidates they had changed their voting intentions.
“There was also feedback from some of the audience with postal votes who said they’d delayed submitting these until after the event. That really illustrates a responsible attitude to democracy in action.
“The meeting was positive in nature, informative and non-confrontational so there was also a positive view that Dee and Glenkens ward is fortunate to have a breadth of able candidates from which to choose.”
Three seats are up for grabs in the Dee and Glenkens ward.
