DOES it matter to you if the person representing you in Parliament lives in the area?

For example, should someone speaking on behalf of Wincanton, Somerton, Langport, or Frome, live in the Somerton and Frome constituency?

There are no rules saying MPs must live in their constituency, though most do, even if it is a second home.

Why? Because the optics of not being ’embedded’ in the community you represent are not great.

A candidate, or MP’s address can immediately provoke the question, ‘What do they know about my town if they don’t even live here?’.

So, most have a link to the area, if nothing else.

Browsing the list of candidates in Thursday’s Somerton and Frome Parliamentary by-election, a range of addresses feature.

The full list of candidates is:
Lorna Irene Bromley Corke: Christian Peoples Alliance
Martin John Dimery: Green Party
Sarah Joanne Dyke: Liberal Democrats
Bruce David Evans: Reform UK
Neil William Guild: Labour Party
Rosie Mitchell: Independent
Faye Marie Purbrick: Conservative Party
Peter Kevin Richardson: UK Independence Party

While there are no rules over where a candidate should live, there are rules over what information they provide when being nominated.

They must provide their full address to the returning officer (the person overseeing the election).

They can request their full address is not shown on election announcements, such as candidate lists etc, for obvious reasons.

In the case of Somerton and Frome, a number did just that.

Christian Peoples Alliance candidate Lorna Corke’s address is listed as being ‘in Wells Constituency’, for example, while Sarah Dyke (Lib Dem), Bruce Evans (Reform UK), Rosie Mitchell (Independent) and Peter Richardson (UKIP) are all listed as having addresses ‘in Somerton and Frome Constituency’. And Neil Guild (Labour) has an address ‘in Taunton Deane Constituency’.

Only two candidates give their full addresses.

Martin Dimery (Green Party) is listed as living at Innox Hill, Frome, while Faye Purbrick (Conservative) has an address in Rowan Way, Yeovil.

Nothing amiss there.

However, letters popping through doors across the constituency in the last week or so have been questioned by some of our readers, who sent us copies of the document.

Faye Purbrick, the Conservative candidate, is a member of Somerset Council, representing the Yeovil South ward.

On the Somerset Council website, Cllr Purbrick’s address is clearly listed – Rowan Way, Yeovil – just as it is on the by-election documents.

Yet on the letters dropping onto mats give, to be polite, a different impression.

Atop the document is a heading, that reads, ‘Faye Purbeck’, followed by an address; ‘The Sparkford Inn, High Street, Sparkford, Yeovil, BA22 7JH’.

The Sparkford address atop a campaign letter sent to households in the Somerton and Frome constituency

It certainly appears like a letterhead, where you would expect someone’s address to be listed.

There’s no mention of it being a ‘contact address’, or a ‘correspondence address’. It’s just… There.

It just so happens Sparkford is in the Somerton and Frome constituency, while Rowan Way in Yeovil, is not.

We emailed Cllr Purbrick’s campaign in a bid to clarify the situation, but have so far received no response.

So we called The Sparkford Inn and asked whether Cllr Purbrick lived there.

A very polite lady told us Cllr Purbrick doesn’t live there, but, ‘she works here, my lovely’.

Fair enough, but isn’t it a touch misleading to have that address atop your election literature?

Aren’t people being encouraged to believe you in fact live in the constituency you are seeking to represent, when in fact, you don’t?

We also emailed all of the other campaigns and asked them to clarify their addresses were as detailed on the election documentation.

Rosie Mitchell (Independent) responded, confirming her address is ‘in Somerton and Frome Constotuency’. As did Peter Richardson (UKIP), who told us he has lived in Somerton for 25 years.

We have not heard back from Lorna Corke (Christian Peoples Alliance), Martin Dimery (Green Party), Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrats), Bruce Evans (Reform UK) or Neil William Guild (Labour).

But then, most candidates don’t really mention specifics of where they live.

In campaign literature we’ve received, Martin Dimery (Green) notes he has ‘lived in Frome for 40 years’. Sarah Dyke (Lib Dem) says her ‘family’s farming roots here date back 250 years’. Neil Guild (Labour) and Bruce Evans (Reform UK) don’t mention their address or specific links to the area in the literature we have seen.

Lorna Corke (Christian Peoples Alliance) says she has ‘lived in Somerset for over 30 years’ and she was a Sedgemoor District Councillor, representing UKIP in Highbridge and Burnham, for some years around 2014.

In her leaflet, on which she is titled an ‘Independent Socialist’, Rosie Mitchell says she was ‘born just a few miles outside of Frome’.

We haven’t seen any literature from Peter Richardson (UKIP), though he has clarified his situation.

It is only Cllr Purbrick who has been, shall we say, a bit confusing on her literature with regard to her address.

Indeed, a page on one of her leaflets is headed, ‘one of us’. But exactly which address she lives at remains somewhat confusing.

And seeing as we haven’t heard back from her or the campaign, we can only leave you to draw your own conclusions.