It's Thursday morning and husband and wife Mike and Irene Carruthers are sat together on a bench in Ormskirk town centre, their dog Bella waiting calmly at their feet.
Thursday means market day in Ormskirk and the historic town is buzzing with people popping in and out of stalls that snake their way through the pedestrianised centre.
Mike and Irene have made the short journey from their home in nearby Bickerstaffe to do some shopping and enjoy the day, something they often do. "Ormskirk is a very traditional town," says Mike, 72, who used to manage a group of nightclubs. "We really like it here. The market is on twice a week and its a big draw for the town, lots of people come from Southport, Preston, Skelmersdale and elsewhere."
READ MORE: Man threatens to kill Merseytravel guard before being sent to the floor
Ormskirk is the second largest town in the West Lancashire constituency. Its peculiar name is undoubtedly Scandinavian in origin. The Vikings settled in the area after landing on the coast in the 9th Century.
Situated just off the A59 and close to the M6 and M58 motorways, Ormskirk and the surrounding areas have become increasingly popular for those commuting into Liverpool in recent times, boosting house prices and encouraging new businesses to open up including a trendy new food and drink market. As Mike says, the twice-weekly market continues to be one of the town's big selling points for locals and visitors.
For the past 18 years this town, and the others that make up the West Lancashire constituency, have been represented by Labour MP Rosie Cooper. On Thursday, the people of West Lancs will vote for her replacement in a by-election called after Ms Cooper announced she would be moving on last year.
It's fair to say the long-serving MP gets mixed reviews around these parts. Mike and Irene are full of praise. Irene says Cooper was "loved", while her husband says the outgoing representative was a "people person who was there when you needed her".
There is a different view in the nearby Golden Lion where friends Paul and Bernard are chatting over a lunchtime pint. "She won't be missed," says Paul about the soon-to-depart Member of Parliament, adding: "She just used the local paper (the now defunct Champion) for her own publicity."
Mind you, as the conversation progresses, it becomes clear Paul has little time for many politicians. He says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak "has no idea what he is doing," while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is "like a piece of cardboard who couldn't govern his own living room". No words minced at the Golden Lion.
Hoping to retain the West Lancashire seat for Labour on Thursday is campaigner and trade unionist Ashley Dalton. Dalton beat off competition for the Labour nomination from former Knowsley Council deputy leader Louise Harbour and Emma Fox, the daughter of House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle, in the selection process last year.
She will go into the vote as a strong favourite ahead of Tory Mike Prendergast, Lib Dem Jo Barton, Green candidate Peter Cranie, Reform UK's Jonathan Kay and, of course, Howling Laud Hope from the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Labour held West Lancs by more than 8,000 votes in an otherwise disastrous 2019 General Election showing and, with the party now flying high in the polls, under-pressure Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be watching on nervously this time around.
Whoever is elected on Thursday will become the Member of Parliament for a constituency made up of some very varied places. Ormskirk is seen as a town on the up with its popular market, rising house prices and good travel connections (a new bus station will open soon as part of a wider redevelopment of the town's eastern gateway).
It's hard to look past Ormskirk's progress without a mention of the blossoming Edge Hill University campus and the thousands of people and pounds it has brought into a town that at one stage was at risk of crumbling into obscurity.
But not everywhere in West Lancashire feels this sense of positivity.
Just six miles away in Skelmersdale - the largest town in West Lancashire - the feeling is far more bleak. A man sits on a bench outside the town's Concourse shopping centre and sums his hometown up in two words: "Total crap."
The man, who didn't want to give his name, has lived in 'Skem' since he was a child after his parents moved here along with many others when the bulk of the town was created in the 1960s, largely as a residential overspill for the rapidly growing Liverpool population.
Skem's history goes back much further than this, with a first mention in the Domesday Book in 1086 and a name derived from Old Norse, but most of the town as it stands today is largely a modern construct.
The man on the bench adds: "We've had lots of promises that have all been broken, like getting a railway station. How can you level somewhere up without a train station?"
The saga of the Skem train station that never was is a long and painful one. Ask any one of the town's 40,000 residents what they are most frustrated by and many will tell you it is the lack of a train station in the town and, generally, poor public transport alternatives. It somehow takes at least an hour and a half to travel just 15 miles into Liverpool.
When it was created in the 1960s Skelmersdale was heralded as a futuristic vision for town planning and connectivity, with no traffic lights and an abundance of roundabouts. There is a sad irony that most people here - many of whom arrived into the new town from Liverpool - now feel cut off from those areas they have their strongest links with.
In July last year the government rejected funding plans from Lancashire County Council, which had submitted a business case to the Department of Transport for the creation of a rail station on the site of the former Glenburn Sports College, closed by the council in 2015. It was hoped a new station could link up to the Kirkby-Wigan line and potentially become part of the Merseyrail network.
The rejection was the latest blow for a town that has been crying out for better connections for a long time and that feels like it is continually let down by authorities of all stripes and and at all levels. Soon to be ex-West Lancs MP Rosie Cooper described the government's decision as a "cruel joke".
Inside the Concourse, known locally as 'The Conny', friends Dave and Wendy are talking over a pot of tea. It doesn't take long before the topic of Skem's transport connections - or lack thereof - comes up.
"A railway connection would make a big difference here," says Dave, adding: "The alternative is two hours on the bus to Liverpool. There can't be many bigger towns than this that don't have a train station and yet more houses are being built with more people moving into them."
Wendy says she thinks Ormskirk is favoured in terms of attention, facilities and possibilities, adding: "They've got a train station and they are getting a brand new bus station but there are more people here."
There is a weariness about Dave, perhaps stemming from years of broken promises, as he explains that he doesn't know if he will vote in Thursday's by-election. "Maybe I will do a protest vote or something," he adds.
Skelmersdale's position as the poor sibling of West Lancashire is made clear in a public health report from Lancashire County Council. It shows that the seven most deprived council wards of the West Lancashire district are all in the town. The seven wards are not only the most deprived in West Lancashire but four of them fall into the top 5% most deprived areas in the whole country. One line from the report sticks out powerfully - 'life within the seven wards seems much harder than elsewhere.'
Back in Ormskirk and Golden Lion regular Bernard recently made the move to Ormskirk having lived in Skelmersdale for more than half a century so he's in a decent place to sum up the perceived disparity between the two. "It's just better here isn't it. Ormskirk has a lot more going for it," he says as his friends nod along.
Later this week the nation's media will descend on West Lancashire as the results of the by-election come in. There will be plenty of analysis about what it will mean for Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, for the Tories and Labour, and for a General Election coming more closely into view on the horizon.
But once the camera crews and the journalists head back to London, the people of Ormskirk, Skelmersdale and the whole of West Lancashire, with their different needs and priorities will hope they are at least listened to in the years ahead.
(With additional reporting by Amy Lovelady)
READ NEXT:
Two men in their 20s die in M57 crash
Ex pro footballer's property empire on radar as prosecutors go after drug money
Loose Women's Christine Lampard 'grateful' as she's flooded with supportive messages
We tried chocolate hazelnut spread from Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Asda and one was like Nutella
