The Lunar Society was delighted to host the 2024 Metro-Mayoral Hustings at the splendid new Enterprise Wharf building on Tuesday 26 March.
Candidates and representatives from four of the major political parties attended the event, where they outlined their visions for the future of the West Midlands and took questions from the audience ahead of the upcoming Mayoral election in May.
The event was opened with a few words from Society Chair Clive Stone, and hosted by our Honorary Secretary, Charmaine Burton. They were joined by:
Andy Street, representing the Conservative Party, Siobhan Harper-Nunes, representing the Green Party, Lee Dargue (on behalf of candidate Sunny Virk), representing the Liberal Democrats, and Pete Durnell (on behalf of Elaine Williams), representing Reform UK.
Insightful questions
Over 60 guests joined us for the event, and more were watching via live stream – with the kind support of one of our sponsors, innovative meeting firm Civico.
Candidates received an eclectic mix of questions from the audience, on important topics ranging from transport and regional funding to Gaza and domestic abuse.
The event was one of the first to be held in ‘smart building’ Enterprise Wharf, near Aston University, which was only completed in November last year.
Local democracy in action
Chair Clive Stone said: “It was fantastic to welcome so many guests to our hustings event and truly see local democracy in action. We had some excellent questions from the audience, and I’d like to thank everyone who joined us for making it a very special evening.”
Honorary Secretary Charmaine Burton added: “Many of the candidates talked about the importance of giving local people a voice – and this is exactly what we tried to achieve at our hustings event. It’s so important to hold our leaders accountable and I’m grateful to those who joined us to make that happen.”
We’d like to thank our event sponsors: Ace PA Hire, Birmingham Metropolitan College, Bruntwood SciTech, Civico and TLG Management for making this event possible.
You can watch a recording of the hustings in full by clicking here:
https://civico.net/lunarsociety/18800
