SOUTHAMPTON Itchen is one of Hampshire’s fiercest election battlegrounds – and could again prove one of the county’s most marginal seats.

The battle for the seat started two years ago when long-standing Labour MP John Denham announced he was standing down after 23 years as the constituency’s MP.

His challenger at the last election, Conservative former council leader Royston Smith, lost out by a mere 192 votes and now faces Mr Denham’s successor as Labour candidate, journalist and former London councillor Rowenna Davis, in a fight that has become more and more heated over the last two years.

And there is also a range of other hopefuls hoping to overtake Labour and the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Greens and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all fielding candidates.

Southampton Itchen, as in Southampton Test, is a constituency that has experienced its share of cutbacks in the last few years with city council-run services such as care homes and children’s centres facing the axe.

The question of council cuts has proven another battleground for Labour, which runs the council and says it has been harshly treated by Government cuts, and the Conservatives, who say alternatives were possible that would have made the cuts less severe.

Libraries, such as those at Cobbett Road, Weston and Thornhill, also face an uncertain future after reviews were launched, sparking popular campaigns, and the issue of council cuts and their impact on the city is likely to continue after the election, whether it is David Cameron or Ed Miliband in power.

A lack of health facilities and access to medical care has long been a key issue on the eastern side of the city and has been brought back into focus again by the ongoing saga over the future of the Bitterne Walk-In Centre.

The City Clinical Care Commissioning Group (CCG) proposed a six-month pilot closure last year but then shelved the plans after a fierce public outcry.

However, its long-term future remains uncertain, with a public consultation due later this year.

Itchen is a constituency that has a long association with Southampton’s maritime past, being the home of the Vosper Thornycroft ship-building yard until 2003 and the question of rekindling that heritage – and the skilled jobs that come with it – is likely to be one raised by whomever becomes the seat’s new MP.

Transport, another thorny issue that affects much of south Hampshire, is something else that gets residents heated with Itchen only linked to the western side of Southampton by four bridges that can grind to a standstill if something goes wrong on the city’s roads.

And housing is set to be another key issue with about 15,000 people on the council’s waiting list and question marks raised by the Conservatives over the future of the Townhill Park estate regeneration project, although Labour council bosses insist the plans for hundreds of new homes will come to fruition.