The Liberal Democrats have chosen their candidate to fight the next general election in North Dorset.

David Chadwick, 27, who grew up in Gloucestershire and currently lives in London, says his key areas of concern include Brexit, public services,  the climate, education and affordable homes.

Mr Chadwick, who works as a data privacy consultant for Promontory, an IBM-company, says: ‘We face a government with no interest in governing and every interest in looking after itself. North Dorset is suffering from neglect – public services have been run down and there is no long term plan to fix them. We need structural solutions rather than short-term cash pledges.

‘Brexit will hit particularly North Dorset hard: there are 42 nurses from EU member states working in hospitals here. Farmers will lose their subsidies and be hit by tariffs of an average of 23 percent. It will be much harder to tackle organised crime in the countryside if we leave Eurojust, Europol and the European Arrest Warrant.’

He adds: ‘The Liberal Democrats have policies to fix the pressing concerns our government is avoiding: tackling the climate emergency, introducing lifelong learning funds for every citizen and empowering local councils to build the affordable housing North Dorset needs.’

The Lib Dem candidate, who says he has relatives in Dorset, told Gillingham & Shaftesbury News that one of his personal interests in politics is the decentralisation of power. ‘I’ve also written for the Centre for Policy Studies on how to overcome the class divisions in British society.’

David Chadwick says that in 1945 North Dorset – or ‘Dorset Northern‘ as the constituency was then known –  voted for a Liberal candidate to help  ‘build a county fit for the future’. He adds: ‘And that’s what we are going to do here again.’