Boundary changes in Cornwall result in additional sixth seat for Parliament

Once polling stations close on 6th May and the votes are counted, there will be six MPs representing Cornwall in Parliament.

The additional seat is the result of Boundary Commission changes approved in 2007.

The commission is legally required to review England's constituencies every eight to 12 years to ensure they are as fair as possible.

The six constituencies are now Camborne and Redruth; North Cornwall; South East Cornwall; St Austell and Newquay; St Ives; and Truro and Falmouth.

While this is one extra constituency, two familiar constituencies,  Falmouth and Camborne and Truro and St Austell, are now relegated to the history books.

Falmouth is part of the Truro and Falmouth constituency. Candidates who have declared so far, although there are still two weeks for more to come forward, are: Conservative, Sarah Newton; Labour, Charlotte McKenzie; Liberal Dempcrat, Terrye Teverson; Green, Ian Wright; UK Independence Party, Harry Blakeley; and Mebyon Kernow, Loic Rich.

Historically, Cornwall has, in the main, voted Conservative. However, all this started to change with the 1992 election and today all five of Cornwall's MPs are Liberal Democrat.

Today, Labour does not have an elected representative in Cornwall at all above parish council level. And in the European Election the county's voters pushed it into sixth place behind even Mebyon Kernow and the Green Party.

The United Kingdom Independence Party will be the one to watch in Cornwall. They already have two MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) and polled five per cent of the Cornish vote, more than any of the other smaller parties, in the last general election.

Mebyon Kernow won just 1.4 per cent of the county's votes in 2005, though this was still nearly three times as much as the Greens.