A NORTHWOOD councillor has been chosen as the Conservative candidate to battle for the Hayes and Harlington seat at this summer's general election.

Scott Seaman-Digby , who was brought up in Hayes and who now lives in Eastcote, was one of six prospective candidates vying for the spot.

He will now battle for the seat held, since 1997 by John McDonnell in what is now regarded as a Labour stronghold.

Mr McDonnell will be defending a 10,000 vote majority, and it would take a swing of 14.3 per cent to unseat him in June.

And, thanks to boundary changes, Hayes and Harlington constituency will grow after the election, absorbing much of West Drayton, currently in the Uxbridge constituency.

Mr Seaman-Digby, who has already assembled his campaign team, said: "I am still a bit in shock but it has just been frantic activity from the word go, and we will be sure to take the fight to John McDonnell.

"I think it's safe to say that in this election no seat is safe for the Labour party."

Although the claws may already be out in the lead-up to the election, there is one thing on which both men agree: Mr Seaman-Digby says under a Conservative government, third runway proposals would be halted.

"The difference with us and Labour is clear," he said. "Whatever the incumbent MP in Hayes says about his opposition to the expansion, he has no influence with his party and has failed to change their policy, which is to proceed full steam ahead with the expansion and the third runway.

"The plans will impact on the health and welfare of entire communities.

"It must be stopped and the Conservatives have pledged to do that."

In response to Mr Seaman-Digby's appointment, Mr McDonnell accused him of drawing on a 'tenuous connection with Hayes' to curry favour with voters, and said: "Yet again, I will be the only candidate standing who actually lives amongst the people I seek to represent.

"The only connection that I can find is that as a Hillingdon Conservative councillor, this person has voted consistently to sell off the Hayes Stadium and various other sites in Hayes, in what many of my constituents have described as an asset-stripping exercise to fund projects in the north of the borough.

"Even more staggering, in the 35 years I have been campaigning against the third runway, I have never seen this councillor at any of the protest meetings that I have organised." * The other declared candidate in Hayes and Harlington is Liberal Democrat Satnam Kaur Khalsa.