NEWPORT East takes in urban and rural, extending from communities east of the river Usk like Maindee and Beechwood in the city centre to smaller villages like Magor and Rogiet.

It stretches across councils, including areas of Monmouthshire as far as Caldicot.

First contested within these boundaries in 1983 after boundary changes split the former Newport constituency in two, it has been a Labour stronghold since then.

Long-standing Labour MP Roy Hughes was the MP until his retirement at the 1997 General Election.

Alan Howarth, who had defected from the Conservative Party, then held the seat for Labour until he stepped down in 2005, when Jessica Morden won the seat for the party once more.

Ms Morden went on to win again in 2010, and works from the same office building as Labour AM John Griffiths who has held the seat since the first Assembly elections.

The constituency hosts the Corus steelworks site at Llanwern. A good part of the site closed in 2001 with the loss of hundreds of jobs, and part of this land has now been redeveloped as housing.

In the city centre the area along the river front has undergone major regeneration in the past few years, including many waterfront housing developments, the creation of a river front walkway and the redevelopment of Rodney Parade, home of Newport rugby and more recently Newport County, into a multi-million-pound stadium.

It also home to Newport International Sports Village in Lliswerry, which includes the Dragon Park football training and teaching facility and Newport’s velodrome.

Issues around the Severn Bridge are a hot topic locally with debate about whether tolls should be cut and controlled by the Welsh Government.

Cross-border health care for those in the Monmouth side of the constituency is also an issue, with some fearful of a ‘postcode lottery’ with different NHS treatment available a few miles down the road.

An M4 relief road, proposed from Magor to Castleton to the south of Newport, will also affect local people as construction is set to begin in the next Assembly Government.

Cuts to adult education at Coleg Gwent (which has a campus in Nash) have also generated protests locally.