THE Mid Dorset and North Poole Constituency is one of the crucial battleground seats of this election.

Its importance has been underlined by the visits of coalition leaders Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats and Conservative leader David Cameron early on in the election campaign.

Lib Dem MP Annette Brooke, who is standing down at this election, won by the narrowest of margins five years ago, when she saw off Conservative Nick King by just 269 votes to secure her third term in parliament.

Nick Clegg had lunch at Molly's Café in Broadstone, which is owned by candidate Vikki Slade, who aims to hold the seat for the party on May 7.

On David Cameron's flying visit to Lytchett Matravers for a barbecue lunch at the home of Calum and Lilli Docherty, accompanied by candidate Michael Tomlinson, he said this was one of the vital 23 seats the party needed to win to secure a majority.

The constituency was created in 1997 poaching areas from North Dorset, Bournemouth West, South Dorset and Poole. Its current boundaries take in civil parishes from three districts, Purbeck, Poole and East Dorset.

In that time it has only elected two MPs, first being won by Conservative Christopher Fraser who held it for one term until it was snatched by Lib Dem Annette Brooke in 2001.

At the next election in 2005 she increased her majority wining 22,000 votes, beating Conservative challenger Simon Hayes into second place with a majority of 5,482.

 

Typically Labour has not done well here securing just 6 per cent of the votes last time round – not much more than UKIP who came away with 4.5 per cent.

Stretching to Bere Regis in the west, Colehill in the east and as far as Wareham in the south this oddly shaped constituency encompasses everything from old rural villages to the suburban estates on the fringes of Poole.

Created by a Boundary Commission review in 1994 it was changed in 2010 when the Poole wards of Alderney and Creekmoor were replaced by Wimborne and Colehill – which didn’t favour the Liberal Democrats.

While there has been a Liberal Democrat in Parliament here for the past 14 years, the Conservatives dominate the local administrations in Poole and East Dorset and at county level.

Hot topics for voters here are likely to be preservation of the greenbelt with proposals to ‘release’ some areas for development under consideration in the Poole Core Strategy review. And the controversial plans for industrial development on land south of Magna Road after planning permission was granted at appeal are also of great interest to residents.

With one in five here aged over 65 – higher than the average nationally – social care, pensions and care of the elderly might also sway votes.