THE man who is tipped to be selected as the Conservative candidate to challenge Labour's John Woodcock in Barrow and Furness has been on the campaign trail to support his fellow Tories.

Simon Fell reduced Mr Woodcock's majority to just 795 votes in the 2015 General Election.

When votes are cast on June 8, there is expected to be significant interest nationally, following Mr Woodcock's outspoken criticism of his party's leader Jeremy Corbyn whose anti-Trident policy is at odds with the majority of his MPs.

Members of the Barrow and Furness Conservatives will tomorrow night vote for their parliamentary candidate although with guidance from the party's HQ advising that 2015 candidates are automatically picked, the result is likely to be a foregone conclusion.


In the meantime, Mr Fell, who works for a not-for-profit organisation which advises banks on how to protect vulnerable customers, has been pounding the pavements to drum up support for himself and the candidates in the Cumbria County Council elections taking place on May 4.

"I think having the two elections so close together will actually increase turnout for the county council elections," the 36-year-old said.

"People have a bit more of an understanding about what's going on."

Mr Fell, and the local Conservatives, will be hoping to persuade traditionally Labour-voting residents to switch to the Tories.

"We've been getting far better feedback than we would expect, with a lot of people telling us they're going to move from Labour and Ukip to vote Conservative," Mr Fell said.

"Hopefully we'll see that translated to votes on both election days."