Romsey Show - Conservative Stand Has Busiest Year Yet

Conservative Stand at Romsey Show Sees Record Number of Visitors

Saturday's Romsey Show saw the stand hosted by Romsey Conservatives at its busiest yet - with two popular polls running for show visitors.

The glorious September sunshine undoubtedly brought out a large number of visitors to the show as a whole, and the topical poll of whether there should be a referendum on the European Constitution encouraged a large number of people to pop into the Conservatives tent.

Hosted jointly with New Forest Conservatives the stand was also visited by the Sahdow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,Peter Ainsworth MP.

Caroline Nokes, prospective MP for Romsey and Southampton North, was available to talk to people on the stand for much of the day, and was encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by local people for a change of Government.

Caroline said:

"We had a larger than normal number of visitors to the stand during the course of the day, and people were very keen to sign our petition calling for a referendum on the European constitution. It is an important issue, and one which was clearly of concern to a large number of people.

"We were also asking people about the issue of youth crime, particularly bearing in mind the issues that have been in the media recently. Specifically we wanted to know whether local people wanted the age at which you can be held responsible for a crime to remain at 10, to be raised to bring us in line with other European countries, or reduced. It provoked some very thoughtful comments and interesting discussions, which was encouraging.

"I was delighted that Peter Ainsworth chose to come and visit Romsey Show and he was very impressed by the Food Show which was held for the first time, and in many ways helped to ensure that the show remained lively and interesting for visitors despite the lack of cattle.

"Obviously the tragic accident in the main ring made us all very sad, and my heart goes out to all of those associated with that lovely pony. It was the first time in the Show's history that anything like that had happened, and the stewards and officials did a first class job in ensuring that children were moved away.My daughter was one of those children - and I really appreciated the swift and tactful way the whole sad event was handled."

Poll Results

Should the Age of Criminal Responsibility

Stay the Same 30%

Be Raised2.5%

Be Lowered 65%

2.5%expressed in writing that they thought parents shoul dbe held responsible for any crimes committed by their children.

Nearly 500 names were collected for the petition calling for a referendum on the European Constitution