We've got to challenge Labour marking Labour'

TORY MAYORAL CANDIDATE CLAIMS BURNHAM HAS ONLY LEVELLED UP CITY CENTRE

- ETHAN DAVIES

"ANDY Burnham has levelled up city centre Manchester, but he hasn't levelled up the rest," Conservative mayoral candidate Laura Evans says pointedly.

She's speaking from her favourite Starbucks on Quay Street in the city centre. It's a patch she knows well from running IT firm Fathom with her husband Nathan, who is the Conservative leader in the borough of Trafford, where the pair live.

Mrs Evans chose the location because she's also meeting a Spinningfields resident who's unhappy with the way that Manchester council have put restrictions on motorists on Deansgate and Bridge Street, which he says is causing congestion outside his front door. Earlier in the day, she'd been in Castleton to speak to residents unhappy with the new cycle lanes.

Disparities from borough-to-borough in Greater Manchester and the 'war on motorists' are two of the issues she hopes will resonate with voters in her bid to take the role former Leigh MP and health secretary Mr Burnham has held since 2017.

The Tory candidate knows what the campaign trail entails. She was previously a councillor for the Village ward, covering Timperley from 2011 to 2018.

To take that seat, she defeated a Liberal Democrat-something that hadn't been done there since 1994 - by just 61 votes. When she stood again, she won by a margin 10 times larger of 682 votes. Mrs Evans chose to stand down for the 2019 local elections.

That being said, she's on less supportive ground in Manchester itself, as it's about as anti-Tory as it gets, with the party last having a councillor here in 2010.