VOTERS in Ardrossan got their chance to quiz their Scottish Election candidates at a hustings held by the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Churches Group last week.

Locals turned their attention to Ardrossan Academy and the high tempo hustings, featuring only two of the four candidates for Cunninghame North, got underway.

Vying for a third term in parliament, Kenneth Gibson represented the SNP, Johanna Baxter represented Scottish Labour with Graeme Brooks, the Scottish Conservatives Candidate in Greenock and Inverclyde, standing in for Jamie Greene. There was no representative from the Liberal Democrats.

Canon Matt McManus was in the chair and the interested audience listened to the candidates give their views on the economy, housing, the NHS and education.

Local issues that were brought up included CalMac ferry services, apprenticeships and broadband speeds.

Each of the panel members got their chance to address issues, questions and statements made from the other candidates and keen audience members.

On employment, Johanna Baxter spoke about ensuring keeping the ferries in public hands with Calmac as well as transport links with a new ‘smart tickets’ which she said would mean one ticket for journeys across different modes of transport as well as challenging the SNP on the Dalry Bypass and saying that, if elected, she would ensure it would be completed.

Graeme Brooks said the Conservatives were planning on introducing 100,000 new apprentices as well as the introduction of 10 new skills academies.

Kenneth Gibson said that the SNP introduce eight innovation centres across the country and he hit back at his labour counterpart over the Dalry Bypass saying that it will begin this year as the contract is out to tender and he added that Labour voted against the bypass.

The NHS was tackled next and Kenneth Gibson started off by saying that if elected the SNP would bring in six new centres to deal with fractures but said the most important thing was to ensure the integration between health and social care. He called the NHS ‘the absolute priority’.

Graeme Brooks said that the NHS is key and most important which must be free at the point of need and funded appropriately with a plan to reintroduce prescription charges for people who can afford it as well as a ‘major investment’ in the NHS.

Johanna Baxter said that the work the people in the health service do is a very good job and they had given her very good care over the past few weeks following a fractured bone in her leg. She said that the health board in Ayrshire and Arran were struggling to balance their budget costs.

On education, all parties said they would invested in schools with education called ‘the highest priority’ by Labour with the Conservatives wishing to give more powers to headteachers and the SNP saying they would use the freeze on higher levels of Council Tax would see increased spending in schools.

Candidates finally spoke on housing and what they would to help the shortage of social housing in Scotland, the Conservatives said they would make it easier for developers to build on brownfield land and also that planning fees would be linked to the speeds in which decisions were taken by local councils.

Kenneth Gibson said that SNP plan to build 50,000 houses with 35,000 of these to be social housing, he said: “We know how important it is. We need high quality and high standard housing.”

Johanna Baxter said: “We believe everyone has the right to a warm, dry and safe place to call home.” Before adding that they would help first time buyers with up to £3,000 matched in an ISA for a deposit and that they would build 45,000 social rent homes.”

Unusually, the candidates did not provide closing statements but all received a warm round of applause before the meeting was closed and thanks was offered to Canon Matt McManus for ably chairing on the night.