YORK Central is the most interesting of the area’s electoral battlegrounds, writes University of York elections expert Professor Neil Carter.

York Central will be a closely- fought contest. Labour has held York since 1992, and amassed a majority of over 20,000 votes in 1997, but by 2010 Hugh Bayley won by only 6,451 votes.

With Bayley, a popular constituency MP, standing down, Labour will lose the benefits of his incumbency.

But the real problem for the new Labour candidate, Rachael Maskell, is that Labour is being squeezed from several directions.

From the left there are two anti-austerity candidates: Megan Ollerhead for TUSC and Jonathan Tyler for the Greens.

The Greens in particular are providing a strong challenge (certainly in the poster war), drawing support among students and in areas like Fishergate where they have a local base.

Meanwhile, from the right, Labour voters may be attracted by the anti-immigration message of the UKIP candidate, Ken Guest. There is even a Yorkshire First candidate, Chris Whitwood, to complicate matters further.

This could all be very good news for the Conservative candidate, Robert McIlveen, who will hope to capitalise on the vulnerability of the Labour vote – although he may lose votes to UKIP too.

So I expect to see both UKIP and the Greens pushing the Liberal Democrat candidate, Nick Love, hard for third place. But the real contest will be a closely-run affair between the Conservatives and Labour to be the next MP for York Central.

Constituency in figures York Central is an entirely urban constituency, which shows high levels of inequality and relatively low levels of income compared to the national average.

lThe population’s median age is 41 years old, close to the national average of 40.

lThe 18-34 year-old are the largest demographic group, making up 42.7 per cent of the population. The second largest group is the over 65s, who make up 16.3 percent of residents.

lAccording to the last labour market figures published on April 17, York Central’s unemployment rate is 1.3 per cent of its population over 16 years old, below the national rate of 5.6 per cent.

lIn 2012-13, the average annual personal income was £19,100, significantly below the national average.

At the beginning of 2015, the average house price was £167,000.