WILTSHIRE POLICE chief Kier Pritchard is joining a discussion panel for the new Festival of Ideas in Salisbury.

The Festival of Ideas is part of Salisbury International Arts Festival.

Chief Constable will join a panel that includes Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, and Wiltshire Creative Young Ambassadors to debate what would happen to Parliament if the voting age was lowered to 16, on Saturday, June 1, 7pm.

Wiltshire Creative Take Part director Louise Dancy said: “We are sure Kier’s insight into the challenges young people face both locally and nationally, their frustrations as well as their achievements, will be an important perspective within the discussion.”

Kier was appointed Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police on November 30, 2018 having been Temporary Chief Constable since March 2018 and led Wiltshire Police during the two nerve agent incidents in Salisbury last year.

Also joining the Festival of Ideas is local school pupil Kat Ewing. She has been instrumental to setting up the Youth Strike for Climate campaign in Salisbury. She will join a discussion of Our Fragile Home at 5pm on Friday, May 31, which will consider the global nuclear threat and the emerging climate emergency.

Our Fragile Home, The Festival of Ideas, runs from Friday, May 31 until Sunday, June 2.

Rebecca Johnson - Greenham Common peace campaigner and co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the 2017 Nobel Peace prize, has curated the new festival.

Starting the weekend on May 31 is a conversation between Rebecca Johnson and ambassador Alexander Kmentt, who played a key role in organising the Vienna International Conference on Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons that set the scene for the UN to hold negotiations in 2016/17, and Dr Patricia Lewis, research director, International Security at Chatham House. They will discuss how growing nuclear and climate risks and humanitarian concerns fed into the United Nations’ negotiations on a ground-breaking new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.

On Saturday, June 1, Rebecca talks about her career including the five years she spent opposing cruise missile deployments at Greenham Common and how her work to raise awareness about nuclear threats around the world contributed to the formation of ICAN.

On Sunday, June 2, poet Antony Owen, singer-songwriter Grace Petrie and film-maker Pete Bishop will discuss the power of music and wordswhile also performing examples from their own repertoire.

Also on Sunday June 2, Iain Harvey producer of When The Wind Blows will join director Lizzie Minnion (Stranger on the Bridge) and Yves Degryse, artistic leader of Zvizdal, to discuss the ability film has to engage emotion and affect political and social debate.

Other events include Collisions, a virtual reality journey into the homeland of a remote tribe in Western Australia whose first experience of the developed world was witnessing an atomic test in the 1960s; films When The Wind Blows and Threads and talks by climatologist Chris Rapley and author Tim Marshall.

Tickets to the Festival of Ideas are on sale now and can be booked by calling 01722 320333 or by visiting wiltshirecreative.co.uk.