A Labour candidate for Devon County Council has received the backing of a party heavyweight making a visit to the South Hams.

Author and historian Tony Rea will contest the Ivybridge division in May’s elections, currently held by county council cabinet member Cllr Roger Croad.

Mr Rea was joined on the campaign trail by Labour front bencher Richard Burgon, shadow secretary of state for justice and shadow lord chancellor, as a group of party members knocked on doors around Bedford Grove, Marshals Field and Montgomery Close in Ivybridge.

Mr Burgon said the Labour group "got a good response on the doorstep". He said: "What is very clear is that people want a local councillor who is out there in the community, not just giving speeches in the town hall or anywhere else, but knocking on doors, asking people if there are any issues they want to raise.

"Some people are really surprised when they get to meet a local politician who’s out there to listen to them, and set out what he would be as a local representative."

Mr Burgon linked the local with the national situation, saying the county council had had to deal with "big cuts" from central government. He also drew attention to the furore over increasing national insurance contributions for self-employed people, something he said would hit low and middle earners to the tune of £240 per year.

He said: "There is a feeling here and across the country that people haven’t done very well out of business as usual, and need a change. Tony’s part of that change, and as a shadow cabinet member I’m really pleased to be here with him door knocking."

Mr Rea has produced a document setting out a Labour vision for Ivybridge based on the Devon party’s manifesto, which was launched recently.

Mr Burgon continued: "These are key principles about the health service, about protecting services for the elderly and vulnerable, and these are things that other parties have shown in practice they are not committed to."

Mr Rea used the example of Sure Start children’s centres, which he said were a Labour initiative cut by 15 per cent by the Conservative DCC.

Mr Burgon added: "Voting Labour allows people to send a clear message, about defending health services from privatisation, rural hospitals for example in this area that are under threat of closure, that business as usual hasn’t worked. My view is the way the economy has been run hasn’t been to the benefit of the majority of people who live in Ivybridge, or anywhere else.

"We were promised that this painful period of austerity would be worth it, in their view, because it was going to eliminate the deficit. First of all it was going to eliminate it by 2015, then 2020 and now, we don’t know when. And also, debt has rocketed under this government’s watch. When George Osborne took over as chancellor debt was 62 per cent of gross domestic product and now it’s well over 80 per cent under Phillip Hammond, which shows it hasn’t worked, even by their own test.

"In the budget £2.5million has been taken out of the pockets of low and middle earning self-employed people against a Conservative party manifesto promise, and that again is apparently because we need to cut back. So who’s paying the price for this? It’s people who aren’t too well off in Ivybridge and everywhere else."