JUNGLE celebrity and former MP Lembit Opik chaired a bikers hustings in Salisbury yesterday (Monday).

Mr Opik, who is director of communications for the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG), is attending events across the country helping bikers to quiz their city’s future parliamentary candidates on their concerns.

The event held at the Hayball’s Motorcycles showroom on the Churchfield’s industrial estate was attended by Labour’s Tom Corbin, Liberal Democrat’s Reeten Banerji, UKIP’s Paul Martin and Independent’s King Arthur Pendragon.

Conservative MP John Glen sent Matt Dean as his representative due to attending a public meeting in Bemerton Heath and the Green Party’s Alison Craig sent Brig Oubridge as her representative due to attending a long-standing family commitment.

Mr Opik, who appeared on the television show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2010, and had attended the hugely-popular Salisbury MAG’s annual meet in the Market Place the day before, said: “Bikers are on the ascendancy and we want nothing more than rider’s rights.

“The fact that each candidate wants to engage with us is what matters.”

Each party representative was keen to highlight their biking connections with Mr Pendragon, the self-confessed “mad druid from Stonehenge” arriving on his own motorcycle.

Mr Martin said he was a retired biker having had his first motorycle when he was 12 while Mr Banerji said he was a scooter-rider and Mr Oubridge man said his son had five motorbikes.

Mr Corbin said that while he was not a biker, he had always wanted to be one but was unable to afford all the gear when a teenager and Mr Dean received a cheer for pointing out his involvement in obtaining free passage for motorcyclists on the Itchen Bridge toll road when he was a member of Southampton City Council.

Topics raised by bikers include the the current licensing system, the modification of bikes and the usage of bus lanes as well as concerns over armadillos - small plastic bumps which act as lane segregators but are hazardous for bikers if they clip one.

Mr Opik ended the evening by asking each candidate to commit to opening next year’s Salisbury MAG which they did with pending commitments coming from both Mr Glen and Ms Craig.