We asked you to submit your questions to candidates standing in the 2024 General Election.
From all your submissions, we chose 10 that represented the broad issues you wanted answers to.
We asked every candidate we had contact details for to respond.
We’ll be publishing them in the run-up to the General Election with the responses from the candidates who replied from each constituency.
These are the answers are from candidates standing in the Penrith & Solway constituency.
What do you plan to do about the abysmal state of public transport? Buses are either late, cancelled or constantly breaking down and not mechanically fit for purpose
Mark Jenkinson, the Conservative Party
We’re investing millions of pounds in restoring, creating and extending bus services through our councils, but they’ve been slow in getting that funding to bus routes – particularly in Cumberland.
Cumbrian councils have also been given nearly £300m for local transport priorities but are yet to set out what those priorities are.
Our local bus companies took a real hit during Covid when the county council did not pass on funding from government, but I’m glad to see recently on these very pages huge local investment in new buses by our companies.
Susan Denham-Smith, the Green Party
Our dysfunctional public transport system is a huge bugbear for me.
As a Green candidate and an advocate for a move towards greater use of public transport, not being able to take journeys reliably or affordably is close to my heart.
I would support a plan for levelling up public transport provision across the country, as in Germany, for example, where the national transport budget is divided equally between the states, we need to see investment in public transport in Cumbria equal to London.
We will work to bring the railway system back into public ownership with annual public subsidies for rail and bus travel to increase to £10bn.
In rural areas local communities need to be consulted and a strategy devised that co-ordinates the local and national strategies. I would like to see the use of technology ie phone apps, to bring in more opportunities for transport sharing schemes and community buses.
