Gavin Esler, Presenter of BBC Town Hall Debates:

"The party leaders will have their say in the televised Thursday TV debates, but most of us will not have the chance to meet a party leader in person or to vote for one directly.

All politics, as the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill, famously observed, is local.

Over the next few weeks, beginning tomorrow, our Town Hall Debates will visit the three constituencies of Bolton West, Stirling, and St Austell and Newquay.

In each place 100 or so local voters – many of them still undecided – will put questions to three or four candidates from the leading parties.

It means we will have a chance to listen to the heartbeat of Britain.

[…]

We do not know what to expect. Nor do the candidates.

That is what makes the debates, and this election, so exciting.

• Town Hall Debates will be aired on the BBC News Channel and BBC website at 1200BST on Tuesday, 13 April."

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