Big general election shake-up for county

This general election will see the biggest shake-up of MPs in Shropshire for a long time.

At the last election, in 2019, the county delivered five Conservative MPs - the same five faces elected in 2017 and 2015.

But only two of those MPs, Daniel Kawczynski for Shrewsbury and Mark Pritchard for The Wrekin, are standing at this election.

The other three have either stood down or resigned.

Last year, the MP for Telford, Lucy Allan, announced that she would be standing down at the next election.

Philip Dunne, who has been the MP for the Ludlow constituency for 19 years, later made a similar announcement.

It means Shropshire is guaranteed at least two new MPs.

Owen Paterson had been the Conservative MP for North Shropshire since 1997

A hard battle will be fought for North Shropshire, which Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan won in a by-election in 2021 after Conservative MP Owen Paterson resigned.

An investigation found he had broken lobbying rules by meeting government ministers on behalf of companies that paid him for private work.

The Tories had held North Shropshire for 115 years.

But Helen Morgan overturned a 23,000 majority to win the seat by 6,000 votes.

Whatever the outcome in that constituency, having three new Conservative candidates in a county that has delivered the same five MPs for nearly a decade makes Shropshire an interesting watch as we head towards 4 July.

• Live: Follow today's election updates from BBC News

There will also be changes to constituency names and boundaries, as part of the redrawing of seats to equalise their sizes.

The main moves are between The Wrekin and North Shropshire, and the renamed Shrewsbury and South Shropshire seats.

• Look up your new constituency with our postcode search

Members of the public in Wem told the BBC how they were feeling in the aftermath of the announcement.

"I’m quite pleased actually, I think it’s a good thing, we need it. I hope that people will actually use their vote. Let’s see where we go from there." said Peter Grindley.

Darren Smith, who works at Princes TV and video shop, said: "It’s something I’ve not really kept my eye on. I’ve just kind of lost interest in politics unfortunately, due to the lack of trust and information that’s been coming across, and not really knowing where to place my vote."

Window cleaner Russell Mellings said: "It's about time, it was due. I’m ready. I think we need a change."