IT HAS been seen as a safe Conservative seat for the past seven years.

Yet in Winchester and Chandler's Ford the Liberal Democrats believe they have a real chance of providing a major shock on June 8.

Steve Brine, the candidate for the Conservative Party, retained the seat with a 16,000 vote majority in the last general election in 2015.

He first won the seat in 2010, when he overturned a 7,500 majority for Mark Oaten in 2005. Before Mr Brine's 2010 victory the seat was comfortably held by Lib Dem Mr Oaten from 1997. Between 1950 and 1997 it was held by the Tories.

Mr Brine will go against Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Jackie Porter, who also faced-off against him in 2015.

She believes this time round the issue of Brexit, where people voted in favour of remain in the constituency by a majority of almost nine per cent last year, could see voters who traditionally voted for Labour and the Tories switch allegiances to the Lib Dems.

Their confidence has been boosted by the county council elections after they took a larger share of the votes for the Winchester divisions than the Conservatives in the seats within the parliamentary constituency.

But, turnouts in general elections are usually much higher than that of county council elections.

Locally, what is concerning people within Winchester is housing, air quality and congestion.

Currently the huge 2,000 home development of Barton Farm is being built, but the scheme was hugely unpopular and saw demonstrations and protests by residents in the city who feel it is becoming overdeveloped.

The Tory-run city council has endured a number of controversies, including the Silver Hill scheme collapsing, and just weeks from the election the council suffered fresh controversy after one of its cabinet members James Byrnes resigned from the party after stealing from his previous employer.

Meanwhile Labour and the Green party have also fielded candidates, with the Greens campaigning hard on the issue of air quality which has been a frequent discussion in council meetings.

While Labour, who have no seats on Winchester City Council, have Mark Chaloner who is a Southampton city councillor as their candidate, but the last Winchester MP for Labour was George Jeger, who served from 1945 to 1950.

Neither the Greens, who have Andrew Wainwright as their parliamentary candidate, nor UKIP who have Martin Lyon fighting for the seat, have ever held the constituency.