Britain's new Prime Minister-in-waiting Theresa May has visited Chester as well as the region on several occasions both in opposition and in government.
Mrs May, who has taken over from David Cameron as Conservative Party leader, will become only the second ever woman prime minister of this country after the late Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday evening.
The shock news came after her last remaining rival Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the race.
Mrs May, who represents the Maidenhead constituency in Berkshire, has taken part in many photo opportunities here in Cheshire over the years.
In 2013, as Home Secretary, she was guest of then Chester Tory MP Stephen Mosley on a trip to Blacon High School where she saw how police were using cage football to engage with young people.
And in 2012 she popped along to the BASE Motopark scramble track at Ellesmere Port aimed at making sure young motorbike riders stayed off the streets. Created on waste land owned by then Tory-controlled Cheshire West and Chester Council, it's no surprise she didn’t pay a return visit when the same administration later sold the land to a neighbouring business forcing it to close.
Back in 2010, as Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Minister for Women, she lent support to successful Weaver Vale Tory parliamentary candidate Graham Evans by joining him on a visit to Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus. Two years prior she and Mr Evans had seen restoration work at Northwich's Lion Salt Works which later became an award-winning museum.
But it hasn’t all been about photo calls.
Cheshire Police have been on the receiving end of Mrs May’s understated yet tough approach on more than one occasion.
She branded the situation as ‘not good enough’ after revealing Cheshire was one of four forces with no black police officers as of March 31, 2015, when she addressed members of the National Black Police Association.
And earlier this year she suspended Cheshire Police from using ‘stop and search’ after Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Of Constabularies (HMIC) said black, Asian and minority ethnic groups were disproportionately affected with no evidence the force had tried to work out why.
Mrs May told The Chronicle it was crucial to keep in touch during a trip to Faulkner Street in Hoole where, as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, she supported a Chester Conservative Association residents’ survey about the cost of living.
“I think it’s important for politicians to get out of Westminster and out of the bubble, to come out and meet people,” she told The Chronicle.
As a woman prime minister the media will no doubt pay more attention to the way Mrs May dresses compared to a male politician – her opposite number Jeremy Corbyn excepted – with a focus on her trademark leopard-print kitten heels which she wore on that Hoole visit.
But Mrs May, who is only the second ever female to have held the position of Home Secretary after Labour’s Jacqui Smith, doesn’t mind that people still take an interest in what she wears.
She told The Chronicle: “Obviously as Home Secretary I don’t expect the first question to be about shoes! But people do still take an interest. It’s a human thing.”
There was a memorable moment when she visited Newtown in Chester back in 2010 where she saw residents working with police and the local authority to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. Unbeknown to her and her personal protection officers, two curious and notorious Chester criminals were circling the local church as she hosted a private meeting inside.
At the time Mrs May had just held discussions about anti-social behaviour with Warrington-based campaigner Helen Newlove, now a Tory baroness, whose husband Garry was murdered by three youths in 2007.
She said: “For a lot of people it’s the anti-social behaviour that affects them and damages their quality of life. It’s also true the figures show that you’re much more likely to suffer from anti-social behaviour if you live in a deprived area than if you live in a more affluent area.”
She had just hot-footed it from addressing the Police Superintendents’ Association conference at Carden Park Hotel, near Chester, where she had talked about abolishing police authorities and replacing them with Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) ‘to try and restore the link between the public and the police’. PCCs were indeed created but low turn-out at the subsequent two elections leaves a huge question mark over whether she was successful in her aims.
On the same trip she attacked the previous Labour government’s liberalisation of the licensing regime saying it had compounded rather than tackled Britain’s binge-drinking culture.
“I argued vociferously that I thought it was going to cause problems, it would not create a continental cafe-style culture and that we would see an increase in problems. One of the most telling figures is the number of admissions to A&E which are alcohol related.”
