The hard work begins for Tories

May 17 2007

The Conservatives have now been swept into power at Chester Town Hall after 20 years in the wilderness. It will be a short honeymoon though – as delivering big promises is expected almost immediately. DAVID HOLMES reports.

When a fresh-faced David Cameron stood under the city’s landmark Eastgate Clock to congratulate his party on capturing Chester Town Hall maybe he could sense that winning was the easy part – there is a lot of hard work on the way.

The city centre is facing an uphill struggle in terms of the competition faced by neighbouring cities and out-of-town retail parks.

A reduction in parking vacancies, a reduction in footfall into Chester, a bitterly unhappy retail sector, vital repair work needed on the City Walls and other heritage buildings, opening the amphitheatre and a stalling evening economy are just a handful of the issues the Conservative administration must get to grips with and quickly.

Chester remains a marginal seat and the prize for a hard-working administration could be to pave the way for a Conservative MP.

Mr Cameron visited Chester city centre on a whistle-stop tour of newly won council seats and greeted victorious councillors and supporters.

Asked what the Tories’ chances were of winning back Chester at the general election, he told The Chronicle: ‘I think very good. I think that we have shown real progress here.

‘It’s one of the marginal seats that will decide who runs the country and we will make sure we have a very strong challenge here in Chester and will be able to build on the success we have had in the local elections where we can show good, strong, moderate, compassionate Conservatism in action with our new city council.’

Mr Cameron, who had arrived by train for a photo opportunity, was asked by one wag if he had come by bike.

‘I couldn’t bicycle all the way to Chester!’ he joked.

Sporting his trademark no-tie look, Mr Cameron told a crowd of voters and new Tory councillors under the Eastgate Clock: ‘It’s great to be here in Chester to say a big thank you to all those who voted for us and for all those who worked so hard and to say to our councillors – you’ve now got a really important job to do.

‘This is a great city, you have been trusted to run it and you are going to do a good job for the people of Chester and I’m proud to be here to say well done and thank you very much.’

Mr Cameron said the results in Chester and elsewhere showed ‘a real breakthrough’ for the Conservative Party in the north of England and across the country.

Asked about his casual appearance, Mr Cameron said: ‘It’s Friday, I’m going, I hope, to several parts of the country and I think I look perfectly respectable.’

Mr Cameron said he had visited Chester in the past but ‘not for a year or two’.

He added: ‘I have been to Chester before. I had some friends who lived very nearby when I was a teenager and it’s a wonderful city.’

Mr Cameron was unaware of the Tories’ big election promise to scrap a proposal for new council offices at Gorse Stacks, branded the ‘glass slug’.

‘I think the local issues should be dealt locally, by local politicians,’ he said.