Full Event: By-Election Hustings for Local Residents in Gorton скачать в хорошем качестве

Full Event: By-Election Hustings for Local Residents in Gorton

Home-made food, brews & biscuits, democracy and community. On Tuesday 10th February 2026 we held a short-format hustings in Gorton. It was the first resident's hustings of this by-election campaign period. We created a warm and welcoming upbeat space for local residents to cut through the noise and connect directly with the candidates that want their vote. Huge thanks to all of our neighbours who attended and to all of the amazing volunteers who made it happen and helped it run so smoothly! We’d been having hundreds of voter registration conversations in the neighbourhood over the week leading up to the event, encouraging people to register and vote for the first time. The hustings questions came from those conversations and from community groups. Those new voters have a wide range of views - we happily helped anyone living in the area to register to vote and use their right to be part of democracy. So this was an event designed to be short and fun for those fairly new to politics who live locally who wanted to hear first hand who the candidates are and what they stand for. All of the 11 candidates were invited fairly, given plenty of information about the purpose of the event, and all asked to respect the same rules which were clearly written in all invitations and briefing documents. This included allowing a maximum team of four supporters per candidate and a clear request, aside from their four allocated invitees, not to share the event with their supporters asking them to attend. The reason for this was also clearly stated - which was that the hall had limited capacity and we wanted to make sure that the seats were reserved for local people, primarily new and undecided voters engaged via a local voter registration drive. Our impartiality measures at the hustings included setting clear ground rules at the start of the event for how the audience should behave, all of the candidates being given the questions printed out on arrival, all given the same amount of allotted time to speak, and mixing up the order of speakers for each question. The event was a lot of work done very quickly entirely by volunteers, so we did appreciate when we were met with good manners and when our rules were respected. Local Voices as a project exists to build community, promote public participation in politics and have conversations across difference in order to find common ground and achieve positive change together. Let’s connect as neighbours, shift the focus to listening to one another rather than judging or assuming, and find ways to make life better and fairer for everyone.