Leigh's Economic Woes Persist Pre-Election

The northern English town of Leigh voted in a Conservative member of parliament for the first time at the UK's last general election.

Locals hoped for a promised transformation of the once-thriving coal and manufacturing area.

But over four years later, and just days until the next national ballot, the signs of economic hardship and neglect remain.

Many shops on Leigh's main shopping street are boarded up. Housing and homelessness are also big issues here.

At the 2019 general election, then-prime minister Boris Johnson persuaded voters in dozens of towns like Leigh in northern and central England to elect a Conservative candidate for the first time.

Those areas in the country's former industrial heartland, known as the Red Wall, were previously strongholds of the opposition Labour party.

But Johnson's pledge to "get Brexit done" resonated with an electorate tired of Britain's slow negotiations to withdraw from the EU.

Voters were also swayed by his promises of "leveling up" - a policy of investing in local projects to regenerate deprived areas.

Many of them now feel betrayed.

And polls predict that the Conservatives will lose all the seats in Red Wall areas in Thursday's vote, helping Labour to a landslide victory.

Leigh was assigned $40 million to redevelop the town center under the "leveling up" plan.

But more than 99% of those funds have not been spent - with the cash caught up in local political and bureaucratic quarrels.

Parliament's public accounts committee said in March that nationally just over 10% of the more than 12-billion-dollar local regeneration funds have been spent.

Of the 44 voters who spoke to Reuters in Leigh, only one planned to vote Conservative this time around.

Labour said if it wins the election it will give more powers to local leaders - and would drop the term "leveling up" to mark a break with Conservative policies.