Telford's new Conservative candidate meets future voters and gives her backing to Future Fit
The newly announced prospective parliamentary candidate in Telford for the Conservative party, visited the town on Saturday and signalled what she thought the key election issues were going to be as she greeted locals.
Hannah Campbell, a 33-year-old political campaigner currently based in Malvern, Worcestershire, was announced as the party's replacement for Lucy Allan MP last Tuesday.
The current Conservative MP for Telford announced over the summer that she would not be standing in the next election.
Ms Campbell, who has served as both a town and district councillor and stood in Birmingham Selly Oak in the 2019 General Election, was greeting potential voters when she visited the Lakeside Plant Centre in Priorslee on Saturday afternoon.
The new candidate said she had come to Telford at the weekend not only to meet her prospective voters, but also to search for properties in the area.
"I am here to meet people and then it's off to the estate agents to look for property as I am definitely moving to Telford as I currently rent in Malvern," she said. "There are a lot of similarities to Malvern and Telford as they are both towns that have a buffer with Birmingham so face similar challenges when it comes to transport, catching trains, the motorways etc and of course hospitals."
She said she backed plans announced by Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust (SaTH) that will see a £312 million change to A&E provision in Shropshire, including removing 24-hour A&E from Telford to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
The plans, which will see the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford with an 'A&E Local', have been opposed by the Labour parliamentary candidate who is also the current leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Shaun Davies.
"This is going to be a key dividing issue at the general election," said Ms Campbell. "Fundamentally, we want to safeguard A&E. What is important for the service is the quality of care and stopping the backlog of ambulances outside the Princess Royal Hospital."
She continued: "A&E is not going to be further away for the people of Telford, they will have an A&E. It is all about safeguarding A&E."
The parliamentary candidate said she though of herself as a "small C conservative" but disagrees with her predecessor on her party's attitude to seats such as Telford.
In a now deleted tweet posted shortly after she announced her resignation, Lucy Allan said the party was "not interested in seats" such as her constituency anymore.
Ms Campbell said: "With the amount of levelling up funding we see, we can absolutely say the Conservatives are backing places such as Telford.
"I'm a passionate small C conservative so I am about supporting business owners and supporting people who believe in building a better place for their families."
She said that the people of Telford had given her a warm welcome when she visited the garden centre, adding: "It is only day four now since I was announced to be the candidate, but I am listening to what people say they love about places such as Priorslee and what the local issues are."
