Update
This has now been completed and the final result is below:
If you have questions for candidates in Eastleigh Central, please post them below or email them eastleigh.central@eastleigh.online. Questions close at 9am Sunday 17th of April
Background
We polled the Eastleigh Borough Local Politics facebook group, and so far 6 of the 6 candidates have indicated a keen-ness to hold another one! This is brilliant news, well done you brave ones! If you’re interested in taking part in this, or in another ward - do comment below or let me know elsewhere.
1 x Fair Oak and Horton Heath: Benjamin Burcombe-Filer (Conservative)
1 x Bishopstoke: Louise Parker-Jones (Independent)
1 x Eastleigh South: Steve Phillips (Labour)
1 x West End North: Ben Parry (Green)
Rough Planning
Disclaimer: All this is a rough plan and subject to change. I’ll communicate changes by replying at the bottom, and updating this main text but I am posting early for maximum visibility.
Approach
Anyone can pose questions by posting them in response to this topic, or if you wish to be anonymous send them directly to me. We’ll also post the opportunity in a local facebook group.
This post will be updated with the question list - along with an opportunity for public to review, or improve upon.
Once the dates and questions are decided, agreed, and locked, candidates will have 7 days notice to provide a video answer at their leisure.
I’ll splice the questions and your video responses together and release on here, and youtube.
Rules
Maximum 30 second responses per question with an option to boost to 60 seconds on just three answers. Breaking these rules may result in your video being trimmed without notice.
Candidates are allowed to ask one anonymous question to other candidates. (As above, send it to me anonymously or post below and we can add to the list).
These rules may adapt and change.
Candidates must represent themselves.
Guidance
Having done this before, we’ve learned providing better guidance is a good idea
How you do your video is entirely up to you. To ensure fairness, we’d like to avoid editing as much as possible so please stick to the rules on timing and provide your videos in a final position.
Try to statically mount your phone or recording device. Watching a moving phone can be hard for viewers to watch.
Try to clip the parts of the video where you’re reaching for your stop button.
Provide each answer as separate video clips, ideally numbered and in sequence.
Use good lighting, it really helps the quality of the video.
Use a good microphone and be wary of background noise. Its not easy to edit out background noise like they do in the movies.
Do not repeat the question in your response. To maintain consistency, focus on the response as though it was just asked to you.
Candidate reply order is kept consistent to help the viewer more easily digest, however this introduces an element of bias. To counter this - the presentation order will be selected based on priority order the videos are fully received, so once the questions are announced the race is on! (You can respond first, but opt to be last if you would like, however if you respond last you have no choice as others will have priority!).
Candidates who choose not take part will be highlighted to ensure they are fairly represented.
Questions
Hello, Who are you?
What’s your favourite place in the Borough?
Why are you standing in this Election?
How long have you lived in Eastleigh, and what is your view on local councillors not living in the town, or county, that they represent?
If money, resources and planning were no object what one thing would you build or create for the people of Eastleigh?
How do you think you could help the housing without building more? Is there anything the current council are missing as it seems we are building more and yet still not enough why is that?
If your prospective constituents were overwhelmingly opposed to something the council or your party proposed, would you: A. Try to convince them it was a good idea. B. Support them. C. Something else, explain.
My son has had 4 sets of antibiotics for a tooth that needs to be extracted but he can’t get an appointment in a local dentist until Feb 2023. How are you going to tackle the dentist crisis long waiting lists and lack of trained dentists?
The play areas in central Eastleigh are very neglected. There is often broken glass and other hazardous rubbish found in the mornings in the parks. What will you do to ensure they are safe, fun and fit for purpose?
As there is a climate emergency, where should we build more houses? What mix of social/affordable/open market would you propose?
If you don’t get elected, what’s the biggest thing residents will miss out on?
One last call - anything you’d like to say?
Timeline
Canvassing for questions from: Tuesday 12th April
Closure and finalising questions: 10am Sunday 17th April
Final date for candidates to get videos sent in by: 10am Saturday 23rd April
Feedback and Suggestions
As always, I’m interested in any and all feedback so that we can improve and make this better. This really is a brilliant opportunity to help people choose the best person they feel represents their views.
I’d like to recommend we opt for a general borough wide hustings with 1 rep from each party contesting the election. Otherwise there’s a lot of work for you Adam to create ones for individual seats and residents outside Eastleigh Central may become confused or feel left out should this not be replicated for other areas.
Out of interest I think in central we have a rep from all the parties so we could literally just change the name and get on with it as is.
I’m not in favour of a Borough-wide video with only one candidate representing each party. The issues in different wards are very distinct and residents should have the opportunity to ask questions that are relevant to their area. EBC operates 5 Local Area Committees and so a compromise could be a video per LAC. But I’m sure for example that both Lisa and Simon would want the opportunity to participate so that takes us back to a hustings per ward. The reality probably is that in some wards candidates aren’t interested in participating so hopefully it won’t be an overly onerous task.
Borough wide hustings with 1 rep of each party I’m not a fan of for a few reasons. To name a few:
It’s not very logical, and makes politics more confusing than it already is to an end voter.
It doesn’t match the ballot paper, so confusing again and less likely of it ending up on the whocanivotefor website.
Eastleigh is BIG. It becomes less local, and opens up to not being as interesting or useful to local people.
It hides the fact many candidates aren’t actually active.
Different candidates in different areas may actually have different ideas, so could come across as bias.
My main hope / intention of doing this is to disprove the mantra “They’re all the same anyway”, so making the main parties the focal point kind of breaks that.
I do accept that:
a) Its a lot of work for me, but hey ho - I love to help make things better! I doubt even half of the wards will participate. We can cap it to the ones with the most interest this election and incrementally grow. It’d be brilliant to do more than 1. If anyone is interested in helping - please make yourself known!
b) Residents outside of Eastleigh Central may feel left out. If they do, I suggest this is actually great progress! They should ask their candidates next time to take part, and encourage us to grow this! It would be brilliant if we work towards increasing local election engagement!
Sorry for the late response but you can count me in too. The format you set out worked last time in Central, so I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t again. I’m looking forward to some healthy debate!
Hey folks! There’s just 24 hours to go until questions close! I’m interested in your early feedback on a decision path.
Last time in addition to residents, candidates were asked to pose another single anonymous question for all candidates. This time I’m not sure there is space for those questions so I think it may be residents only. I find this a shame as I thought it was really good last time and gave an opportunity to showcase yourself or trip up an opponent! Adding this however would add likely around 18 minutes to the video - moving the time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes which I think is likely too long.
We do however have 10 questions and 6 candidates! At 30 seconds per question thats a 30 minute video! (Remember we will also allow candidates to boost to a 60 second answer on two questions).
I’ve updated the question list above with the ones i’ve collected so far There may be a couple of last minute ones but at least you have an early view.
You have until 10am Saturday 23rd April to record a video response and send it to me. The final run-order will be prioritised based on order of your responses. I’m happy to receive videos via any method that’s easiest for you - Facebook messenger, email, other.
Due to the great response this time and number of candidates I don’t think there is space for candidate to candidate anonymous questions this time as the final video would likely be too long. (Targeting around 30 minutes run-time).
Remember
Maximum 30 second responses per question with an option to boost to 60 secondson onlythree answers. Breaking these rules may result in your video being trimmed without notice.
Video responses from 5 of the 6 candidates are in! Thankyou to all of you for responding and taking part (@Josh_Constable@IndyCentral1@Clare_Fawcett@SimonPayne@Tracy_Weeks (for Jack Stapleton)! From what I’ve seen so far I think the responses are brilliant and will likely inspire some debate!
I’ve started the process of putting the videos together and hoping for it to be ready for release by tomorrow night. (not guaranteed!)
@CameronSpencer890 has responded shortly after the deadline to say that he could no longer take part but did respond with a written statement:
Unfortunately, work and other commitments have meant that I haven’t had the time to participate in this hustings. I’m currently working full-time, running for election, and finishing a dissertation, probably the busiest I will ever be!
In my very limited free time, I’ve been doing my best to knock on as many doors as possible. The same issues are coming up time and again, parking, anti-social behaviour, and concerns about the proposed Chicken Hall Lane waste facility. People are taking an active role in our community which has been really inspiring to see! I hope I’ll have the chance to speak to as many people as possible before polling day and afterwards, no matter the result.
Finally, thank you to the team for putting these hustings together. Participation is always very low in local elections. No matter who you vote for, please do vote on May 5th!
Thanks so much for taking part and trying something relatively new. I included a graph this time to try to underscore the difference people can make by getting involved. I’ll do a drains up & specific review post later, but if you have any feedback do let me know!
The challenge now is to get as many people in Eastleigh Central to view, in what is often a topic people prefer not to discuss.
I’ve setup a mailing list to enable people to register to be notified of future hustings videos in their area. This might help get the right information to the right people rather than trusting algorithms! We can also use it to gauge interest in a specific ward to know where efforts should be targeted:
