Hustings are coming thick and fast as next month’s General Election looms.

And there is an opportunity to quiz candidates in both the Hitchin and Harpenden and St Albans constituencies in coming weeks.

The Harpenden Society has organised a hustings at Rothamsted Research conference centre on Tuesday, April 21, at which the five candidates in the constituency will be limited to answering questions on key local issues of housing, schools, health and wellbeing, roads, parking, water, sewage and sustainability.

They will each have around seven minutes to speak before there is a question and answer session on those subjects chaired by Harpenden Society chairman, Chris Marsden (pictured).

On the platform at the meeting which runs from 8pm to 10pm will be Conservative Peter Lilley, Labour’s Rachel Burgin, Lib Dem Pauline Pearce, UKIP’s John Stocker and the Green Party’s Richard Wise.

Entry is free but as demand is expected to be high, seats can be booked via www.harpendensociety.org

Two days later on Thursday, April 23, a St Albans consortium will be holding a Better World hustings in which the candidates will be quizzed on their views about the environment and world issues.

It has been organised by St Albans Friends of the Earth, St Albans Oxfam, Global Justice Now, Transition St Albans and Trinity United Reformed Church in Beaconsfield Road. Doors open at 7:30pm for people to submit questions with the hustings starting at 8.

All the prospective candidates for the St Albans constituency will be on the platform and the evening will be chaired by Karl Wilding, director of public policy at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

Amanda Yorwerth from St Albans Friends of the Earth said: “We hear a lot on the news about the main parties’ policies on the NHS or the economy - and these issues are important - but on big issues like the future of the planet and the big unfairnesses of our time there is little coverage.”

Entry is free and everyone is welcome.