CONTROVERSIAL UKIP politician David Coburn will visit Largs with the party’s prospective councillor Meilan Henderson this weekend as the campaign for the North Coast by-election heats up.

Mrs Henderson, from Arran, is one of five candidates for the seat along with former ‘News’ editor Drew Cochrane, Conservative Toni Dawson, the SNP’s Grace McLean and Labour’s Valerie Reid.

Mrs Henderson and Mr Coburn, who was recently elected as one of Scotland’s MEPs, will be in Largs town centre and on the prom on Saturday.

As the campaign begins to heat up ahead of the October 30 poll, the main topics of conversation have included political bickering and parking.

Parking is at the forefront of Conservative candidate Toni Dawson’s mind as she welcomed plans to introduce a park and ride scheme between Largs marina and the railway station.

We revealed last week that plans were at a late stage to launch a scheme near Largs Marina and Kelburn Country Centre.

“Parking in Largs must be the most talked about issue,” she said.

“It even came up in the referendum campaign at street stalls and on doorsteps. I welcome and support the proposed Park and Ride scheme.” Meanwhile ex-’News’ editor Drew Cochrane has elaborated on his campaign as an ‘alternative’ to ‘tit-for-tat political ‘bickering’.

He said: “As someone who has been steeped in the coverage, reporting and writing about local government for more than 40 years I have seen political parties make a mess of running councils.

“The problem always is that because of tit-for-tat political bickering or ‘extreme’ policies from dominating parties you end up with bureaucratic and inefficient decisions which affect people.” The ‘News’ is commited to being fair to all five candidates, over and above our obligations as a newspaper.

In the interest of a fair election we would encourage all candidates to use our pages to tell readers why they believe they are deserving of their votes.