Midlothian East Local Elections Hustings 2022

Tuesday April 5th 2022

Written by Midlothian View Editor, Phil Bowen

Midlothian View is teaming up with the Eskbank & Newbattle Community Council to organise a local election hustings for the Midlothian East ward.

What is a hustings? A hustings is a meeting where election candidates debate policies and answer questions from the audience. Imagine BBC Question Time but where the panellists are the election candidates. Hustings provide voters with an opportunity to hear the views of all the candidates.

The hustings does not promote any particular candidate because they all have the opportunity to speak and be questioned.

The hustings will take place at 7:30pm until 9pm on Friday 29th April at St John’s and King’s Park Church in Dalkeith. Doors open 7pm.

Please submit questions in advance to the Midlothian View editor by emailing info@pigeonpenguin.com.

Brain Wailes, chair of Eskbank and Newbattle Community Council said:

“We are very pleased to be able to organise the Midlothian East hustings with Midlothian View. We are keen that everyone in the ward gets a chance to see, hear and question all the candidates in one place. It should be a very interesting evening and will no doubt provoke a lively but fair debate.”

Midlothian View Editor, Phil Bowen said:

“It has always been very important to Midlothian View to give everyone a platform to have their views heard and that is what a hustings enables at election time. These local elections are vitally important in Midlothian as they elect the 18 councillors who will make decisions on behalf of the people of Midlothian for the next five years.

“In many ways the direct impact of councillor decisions is felt much more so than decisions made in Holyrood or Westminster and therefore it is important that voters get to hear from all the candidates and choose who they want to be making those decisions.”

All six candidates in the Midlothian East Ward have been invited to the hustings. The candidates in alphabetical order are:

Bill Kerr-Smith (Greens)
Jenny Marr (Lib-Dems)
Stuart McKenzie (SNP)
Ann Montague (SNP)
Bryan Pottinger (Labour)
Peter Smaill (Cons)

Three councillors will be elected.

Scottish Local Government Elections are conducted under the Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system. This means voters rank the candidates in order of their preference.

Here is a video explainer of the voting system from the Electoral Commission.

Midlothian East is a large ward which includes Eskbank, Hardengreen, Newbattle, Mayfield, Easthouses, Pathhead and extends down to the Midlothian border at Soutra.