Cheadle and Hazel Grove are the only seats in Greater Manchester without a Labour MP after this week's general election.

The marginal constituencies were won by the Lib Dems after a collapse in the Conservative vote and a strong push from Labour and Reform.

Lisa Smart, the new Hazel Grove MP, won the seat at the fourth attempt of trying, with the same amount of votes she received in 2019 – 17,000.

A drop in Tory support contributed to the party's loss, with Labour doubling their votes from 2019, and Reform UK winning just short of 7,000 ballots overall.

The writing was on the wall for the Tories weeks before polls opened, with lifelong Conservative voters in the town of Marple telling the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that they were ready to turn their backs on the party.

Despite pollsters pointing to a national Labour landslide for months ahead of the election, Cheadle and Hazel Grove residents decided to back Lisa Smart and Tom Morrison from the Lib Dems, both of whom are Stockport councillors.

A Lisa Smart sign near Marple, in the Hazel Grove constituency (Image - Declan Carey LDRS)

After the Lib Dem victory in the seats became clear on July 5, Hazel Grove residents told the LDRS that the Tories never had a chance of winning after 14 years of government.

Jan, 74, is a Marple Bridge resident who said: "The Lib Dems were the right choice to remove the Conservatives. I think they care about local people and will help us out.

"I didn't want Labour in, and I wonder what they will do with their majority, I think they don't always do what they promise.

"I'm really worried about the future because we've got so much poverty now around here. I don't think there should be in this day and age."

Alan Sheppard, 72, runs Harmony Decor, a decorating business based in Marple which falls into the Hazel Grove constituency.

Alan and Lisa Sheppard run a decor business in Marple (Image - Declan Carey LDRS)

He said: "There was no way the Conservatives were going to win here again after what happened with William Wragg, but I wonder if the Lib Dems can really make a difference, because Labour have a huge majority.

"The polls were right and now we've got Keir Starmer for the next five years. Who is he going to tax? I would expect it will be the high earners.

"But Labour have a different job now they're in power, it's very different from being in opposition."

Graham Dickinson, 74, has lived in Romiley since 2006, a village which also falls into the Hazel Grove constituency.

He said: "I didn't actually vote because I knew Lisa Smart was going to win. The Conservatives made a real mess of things, I'm pleased they didn't win.

"If I had voted it would have been Labour, but here it's always between the Lib Dems or Conservatives.

"Lisa Smart has been campaigning for the Lib Dems around here as a councillor for a long time so she was always going to be the favourite to win.

"I'm a pensioner so I'm worried about the state of the NHS and the cost of living.

"Immigration is an important issue too. There are a lot of people coming here, but I wouldn't vote for Reform."

Graham and Angela Dickinson are a couple from Romiley (Image - Declan Carey LDRS)

Despite Labour's loss in Hazel Grove, the party's candidate Claire Vibert managed to gain a second-place finish in a seat which has been dominated by the Tories and Lib Dems for decades.

She also doubled Labour's total number of votes from 5,000 in 2019 to 10,000 this time around.

Ms Vibert said: "We've shown that the vote is there for Labour as well, but there's more work to do in the coming months and years.

"We saw throughout our campaign that the Tory vote had collapsed, as well as in the local elections in May."

Paul Athans, the Conservative candidate in Hazel Grove, said: "We've seen a lot of Conservative voters switching to Reform, that is the thing that I've taken away.

"It's not a good night for us nationally, it's not a good night for us locally. What I hope is in five years' time and at the next council elections we can bring some of those voters who stayed at home back over."

Lisa Smart, Hazel Grove's new MP, said: "People felt really let down by the Conservatives, they told me on the doorstep they felt like they had been taken for granted.

"I've been knocking on lots of doors here and people were telling me that the Conservatives just weren't responding to the problems that residents were raising with them, they just weren't getting the support they needed."