Squeezed between the muddy, swampy estuary of the Dee and Mersey this constituency has two distinct personalities.
Most of the area is dominated by the oil and petroleum works of Ellesmere Port beside the Mersey; the Shell refinery at Stanlow is the most complex of its type in Europe. In Ellesmere Port the people are mainly working-class and the housing is essentially local authority owned.
There is another side to this seat however, on the banks of the Dee on the southern edge of the Wirral peninsula. The area around Neston is far more genteel and is home to many affluent commuters who work in Liverpool or Chester. The residents are mainly middle-class with Conservative tendencies and the housing is overwhelmingly owner-occupied. Burton is an attractive town with many sixteenth century buildings intact; Parkgate is a Deeside resort which is home to salmon and shrimp fishing.
Ellesmere Port and Neston began in 1983 as a Tory marginal but was won by Andrew Miller for Labour in 1992 and again in 1997 with a 16,000 majority.