I have mixed feelings about Proportional Representation, I’m worried it would lessen the “local candidate” element of the election. I like the concept of voting for a local representative from my area in Parliament, no matter their party affiliation.

That is a misnomer as proportional representation is a family of electoral systems. The party-lists is the electoral system that lacks the local representation however Mixed-Member Proportional & Single Transferable Vote both retain it.

I suppose we could go with PR/STV and triple the amount of representatives to still have some sort of local area representative scheme… but that could get expensive and unwieldy very quick.

The elections would cost the same as it would only cost money at first to convert the system from first-past-the-post to the single transferable vote / mixed-member proportional.