Candidates fighting for the North East Somerset seat have hit the ground running following the announcement that a General Election will be held on May 6.

Five candidates have so far declared that they will be standing as parliamentary hopefuls in the forthcoming election, with April 20 as the deadline for candidates to deliver their nomination papers.

They are Wansdyke MP Dan Norris for Labour, Jacob Rees-Mogg for the Conservatives, Gail Coleshill for the Liberal Democrats, Peter Sandell for UKIP and Michael Jay for the Green Party.

Since the last General Election, the former constituency of Wansdyke has disappeared and the new constituency of North East Somerset has lost the Bitton and Oldland Common area to the north of Keynsham and added the Batheaston, Bathampton, South Stoke and Freshford area (a total area of about 7,000 voters).

All the candidates have welcomed the news that the date of the General Election has been set and are looking forward to the race ahead of them.

Mr Norris said: "The next few weeks will be exciting. The eyes of the whole country will be on North East Somerset: one of the closest and most interesting two-horse Labour-Conservative races anywhere.

"The election here in this ultra-marginal constituency will give all our communities a vital choice about what we want and what we don't want. It's a choice between my vision, based on strong communities working together, and the Tories' approach of leaving individuals to fend for themselves, to either sink or swim.

"As a truly local man, I'm passionate about our North East Somerset communities, and I want to carry on making life better for people right across the area where I grew up and where I have lived and worked all my adult life.

Mr Rees-Mogg said that "at last" an election has been called and he hoped the will of the electorate would see 13 years of government by Gordon Brown's Labour party brought to an end.

He said: "The economic issues are most pressing and need to be addressed to ensure there is sufficient resources for services people.

"Of immediate local importance, we will protect the green belt, giving planning decisions to local accountable bodies. This ought to stop the urban extensions to Bristol and Bath which would ruin countless acres of Somerset's countryside."

Mrs Coleshill, who has worked for 10 years on community projects and initiatives in the area, said that a lot had changed since the last election.

She said: "I am 100 per cent ready for the election contest and hope the people of North East Somerset will elect me as their new MP."

She said canvassing results were looking very good.

"Every week I am meeting new people on the doorstep, and they are telling me they want a change from the old-style politics and break from the two older parties," said Mrs Coleshill.

"As we get closer to polling day, election fever is sure to heat up in North East Somerset."

Mr Jay, who also works part-time as a bus driver and runs a small beekeeping equipment business, joined the Green Party two years ago after finding no Green candidate to vote for at the 2005 General Election.

He said: "I am delighted to be selected as candidate and shall put every effort into giving North East Somerset the opportunity to go Green."

Living in a rural village, one of the key issues he intends to fight for is significant improvements to public transport and road safety, including facilities for cyclists and greater support for farmers and farmers' markets.

Mr Sandell said he is more than ready for the fight ahead.

He said: "For many years I worked in our family garage business at Batheaston but now I am an HGV driver for Gregory Distribution.

"I want a political party that is right-of-centre but more in tune with ordinary working class people than Tory toffs. I think Labour is only interested in wealthy celebs or immigrants, while working people are worse off."