Facing a seismic by-election, the people of Makerfield tell us what matters to them

Facing a seismic by-election, the people of Makerfield tell us what matters to them Just now Share Save Add as preferred on Google Joshua Nevett Political reporter, in Makerfield Getty Images In a handful of former mining towns and villages in north-west England, there is a lot of frustration with the state of the UK. It is common to hear people say "Britain is broken", "we are forgotten", and calls for "change". This is the Makerfield constituency, where locals are being heard louder than ever before in the most consequential by-election in decades. A constituency that made up 0.1% of voters at the last general election is not only picking a new MP on 18 June. Voters here are also potentially choosing the next prime minister. That is because Labour's candidate, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, has said that if elected, he would seek to enter any Labour leadership contest to replace Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street. First, Burnham must defeat his main rival in Makerfield, local plumber Robert Kenyon, who is standing for Reform UK, an insurgent party that is also aiming to win power in Westminster. Britain is "broken", Reform UK claims, while Burnham says the country has been on "the wrong path for 40 years". But in the dozens of conversations I had with voters, residents, business owners and political campaigners in Makerfield, the mood was more nuanced than the rhetoric suggests. So what exactly do they want to change - and what are the candidates promising to deliver? 'Our team is growing' At Rose's Cafe, in Ashton-in-Makerfield, the largest town in the constituency, regulars are munching on their breakfast barms. In 2023, Yasmin Ratcliffe jumped at the chance to open the cafe here, rather than where she lives, in nearby Leigh. With the local council spending £6.6m on regenerating the town, Ratcliffe feels it is a good time to expand her business. Yasmin Ratcliffe's cafe is doing well in Ashton "I feel like it's a much better town in Ashton," she tells me. "It's a lot busier than we thought, so the team's growing." On some indicators Makerfield seems to be doing well, with wages above the national average and high levels of home ownership. The Greater Manchester region in which Makerfield sits has also been growing, generating a genuine buzz around Manchester as a city. A boom in developments, service industry start-ups and university graduates, among other factors, has driven economic growth. While Manchester's lure has pulled in many entrepreneurs, Chris Ratcliffe saw potential in Ashton. In 2019, having worked as an engineer near Manchester for 10 years, he founded Langen, a motorcycle manufacturer, in the town. The company's first line of 100 motorbikes sold out. "There's an element of me that wants to prove a point that we can do it here," he says. But Manchester's rising tide has not lifted all boats in Makerfield. In some ways, the constituency is divided between the better-off neighbourhoods of Ashton, Orrell, and Winstanley in