PEOPLE in Montgomeryshire will be going to the polls this Thursday to vote in the Welsh Assembly elections. Here, the constituency candidates make their case for why they should get your vote.

Richard Chaloner

Green Party

I stood as the Wales Green Party candidate in last year’s General Election and the conversations I had with voters in Montgomeryshire showed that a sustainable environment and social justice are fundamental aspects of the world we would all wish to live in.

I am standing for the Asse­mbly because I am concerned about the damage being done to the envi­ronment, and to people’s lives by the policies and decisions of the parties in government.

Current policies are leading to increasing inequality, and a ‘pillage for profit’ att­itude to our environment, driven by big business and completely detached from the needs and concerns of ordinary people.

The attacks on the NHS and public services are harming the most vulnerable people in society, and complacent dependence on fossil fuels threatens the survival of us all.

Montgomeryshire faces particular challenges in terms of transport, services, housing and access to health services.

Our constituency is geographically one of the largest in Wales and yet has no major hospital.

A vote for the Wales Green Party in the Assembly election is a vote for a sustainable environment, a sustainable economy and for sustainable communities.

Jane Dodds

Liberal Democrat

I want a society where everyone is treated with respect, if they are rich or poor, or whether they work or not.

A society with no more foodbanks, and where public services are held in high regard, where decision-making is made through democracy and not through lobbying powerful corporations.

I want a society where we have full-time work, with no zero-hour contracts.

These commitments are based on my personal and professional experiences, as a child protection social worker for 21 years, as a trustee of a family centre and having worked with refugees, asylum seekers and trafficked children around the world.

After three years of door-knocking, I believe there are three things the next AM for Montgomeryshire needs to deliver on:

Health services; we need an urgent medical centre in Montgomeryshire, we need to keep the A&E services in Shrewsbury and services in Bronglais Hospital, and we need to improve ambulance waiting times and treatment times for patients.

Jobs and the economy; we need to support our rural communities, create more apprenticeships, ens­ure our farmers are able to diversify, and businesses can thrive.

Climate change; we must invest more in renewable energy, divest in fossil fuels and find ways of saving energy.

Russell George

Conservative

It has been a great privilege to serve as your Assembly Member for the last five years.

As shadow minister for agriculture and rural affairs, I have had the fantastic opportunity to speak up for rural mid Wales and our farming industry.

Along with scrutinising the Welsh Government in this important policy area, I have been a member of the National Assembly’s Environment Committee and also set up the cross-party group on digital communications, working to lobby government to ensure that mid Wales doesn’t miss out when it comes to rollout of superfast broadband and improved mobile coverage.

My involvement in local campaigns has seen success in a number of transport improvement schemes leading to major decisions on the Newtown bypass, now under construction; a new Dyfi Bridge; and the hourly train service on the Cambrian Line, all of which are essential projects to keep Montgomeryshire moving.

My priorities, if re-elected on 5 May, will be to deliver the best possible outcome for local healthcare, jointly fighting with our MP Glyn Davies for services to be secured and strengthened at Bronglais and other hospitals which serve Montgomeryshire; supporting and empowering schools through direct funding; backing small businesses by campaigning for the abolition of business rates; and fighting for fair funding for our county.

Aled Hughes

Plaid Cymru

Montgomeryshire has a special place in my heart. I was brought up and educated here like generations of my family before me.

However, devolution and the past 17 years of Labour rule hasn’t been an easy time for the area.

Too often we’ve been forgotten and ignored – an afterthought – while our health, education, transport and public services suffer.

Plaid Cymru has the vis­ion and policies to ensure prosperity for the whole of Wales.

Our pledges to re-establish a Welsh Development Agency for the 21st century and cut business rates would help reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirt of Laura Ashley and Pryce Jones, helping ensure skilled job opportunities loc­ally for young people like myself.

Our vision for the Welsh NHS; more recruitment of doctors, and the merger of health and social care, would not only see our bel­oved institution survive, but also thrive.

In the education sector, we want to see the unsustainable tuition fee system replaced with a ‘learning bond’ system, paying off graduates’ debt when they return to Wales, while loc­ally we want to help protect the long-term survival of the Welsh language through working towards a Welsh-language continuum­.

For a well, wealthy and well-educated Montgo­meryshire, vote for Plaid Cymru.­

Desmond Parkinson

UKIP

I live in Arddleen, near Welspool, with my wife Regine.

During the past 17 years of Labour rule in the Welsh Assembly, many of the services we rely on in Montgomeryshire have been in decline.

We now have a second-class health service and our education system is in a state of frantic reform.

This situation is made worse because the Welsh Government is deliberately starving Powys County Council of funding, while generously funding councils in its south Wales heartland.

The time has come to elect UKIP members to the Welsh Assembly, so a fairer balance of funding and services can be achieved.

If elected, I would focus firstly on improving our health services by doing everything possible to keep the A&E facility at Shrewsbury open, and by getting waiting times for treatment down to the levels in England, and introducing a cancer drugs fund.

To improve education I would make sure that Powys County Council is properly funded and able to keep our six existing secondary schools open.

I would support a plan to upgrade the A470 by eliminating pinch points and providing frequent overtaking lanes.

I invite you to vote UKIP on 5 May.

Martyn Singleton

Labour

I am a 29-year-old retail worker and graduate of Welsh history in Bangor University, and currently studying part-time for NCTJ qualifications in Staffordshire.

Raised from a working class background and working for my adult life, I recognise the difficulties faced by those on low inc­omes and in insecure jobs, faced with an almost imp­ossible work-life balance.

I joined the Labour Party over 10 years ago and have been an active member since, believing in the mantra “that by the strength of our common endeavour we can achieve more than we can achieve alone”.

As a worker and historian of the Labour and Trade Union movements, I bel­ieve there is no better way of addressing the issues that matter than by cooperation.

It is a Labour government that can deliver for Montgomeryshire.

Labour has a better plan for a better future: investing in our NHS, building on the success of Jobs Growth Wales in creating better opportunities for the next generation, and cutting tax for 24m working people through a lower starting rate of tax.

As a young adult I have felt first-hand the difficulties of getting on the career and housing ladder, and these are problems which left inadequately addressed will only lead to further isolation of this generation and the next.