OUR third candidate preview in the build-up to next week’s general election features the Liberal Democrats and their candidate Beverley Nielsen.

Mrs Nielsen was born in Malvern where her father was a research scientist at the Royal Radar Establishment. The family then moved to Ireland when she was eight, but she says her heart remained in Malvern.

She said: “I really love the place. I lived here till I was eight and learned to swim in Priory Park.

“My dad was one of the scientists who made thermal imaging possible and my mum worked at Malvern Girls College.”

Mrs Nielsen’s career took her into various business areas, working for big names such as the CBI and Vogue in New York in addition to presenting a trade report to a House of Lords Select Committee.

From her background in business, Mrs Nielsen says she wants to bring life to the region’s business sector.

She said: “We hear all the time about ‘sleepy Malvern’ but there have been world-changing technological breakthroughs in this area and some of the great discoveries.

“What I feel we need is more ambition for our area. People who came before us worked at the radar establishment and Morgan Motors and the theatre, contributing to science and the arts, and that is what I feel we can do again.”

In addition to the importance of business and innovation, Mrs Nielsen said housing was a pressing concern in the area, advocating for more control for district councils to decide on their own housing provision, rather than the top-down model used currently.

She said: “The issue is we have targets for housing forced on us from national modelling. We have no control over that but it is the same criteria for West Worcestershire and Westminster. We are rural so have a completely different housing need and capacity but we have to base our housing on exactly the same formula.”

Another key issue identified by Mrs Nielsen, who is also a district councillor for the Malvern Hills, was transport, particularly to and from hospitals. She said: “We have seen massive cuts to rural buses, 50 per cent or more, so anyone moving around other than by car is a real challenge. I would like to see more community transport and incentivising that.”

Being a Liberal Democrat, Mrs Nielsen believes passionately in remaining in the European Union, and said: “There’s no deal that can be struck which will give us the freedoms and opportunities we all enjoy now. With generational progress grinding to a halt, what sort of government asks its young people to vote to make themselves poorer?”