Good evening and welcome to the Pompey Politics Podcast.

I'm Ian Tini Morris.

And I'm Simon Sandsbury.

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to our 150th episode and the start of our third season of the online virtual hustings.

So congratulations, Simon. All of those hours of editing have been so worth it, haven't they?

Definitely, definitely. Just helping the great and the good, get the message out there and understand the issues in local and national politics affecting Portsmouth.

So here we are as we approach our fourth birthday.

But we're better places to start than on our first hustings of 2023.

Indeed.

And we're better to start than Charles Dickens.

So our quick overview for those of you not familiar with the world.

So Charles Dickens Ward is based in the heart of the city, principally around Buckland, Landport and Portsy.

It has the largest number of dwellings of any of the wards in Portsmouth at just over 11,000

dwellings in the in the sort of catchment area, it also has historically seen quite a low turnout.

It's a ward that has significant amounts of social housing and in recent years there have been

a number of luxury large-scale student developments in

the ward which are potentially starting to change the demographic of the area there seems there

is an awful lot of economic deprivation in the ward and there's a lot of support provided by the local

councillors.

Historically, it's been a very safe Labour seat for many years now.

And it's also a ward that hasn't been without its political controversy.

If we look back in 2017, the potential Labour candidate resigned days before the election and although elected with Labor next to their name on the ballot paper, they stood as an independent.

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