THE Green Party has announced its candidate to battle for the Warrington North seat.

Sarah Hayes, who has previously worked with the party in other areas of the country, has been selected as the person to claim the Labour dominated seat.

The Greater Manchester woman will start life in her new role immediately and is being backed to succeed by the party's Warrington South candidate, Steph Davies.

"She is relatively new to us here but has been with the party for a while and will be campaigning for the people of Warrington North," she said.

The announcement follows the national 'surge' in support for the party, which, according to Miss Davies, can be seen from the 'unrecognisable' recognition the Greens are receiving in Warrington.

"Everyone is riding on a wave and we are being taken more seriously - you can definitely feel it," she said.

"Our members here have increased in parallel with national membership and we are now getting invited to more events and getting more queries - our profile is different now.

"I stood five years ago but it is totally different now, it is more of a marginal seat and is not as clear cut."

The 46-year-old attended the party's biggest annual conference to date on Saturday.

She joined more than 1300 members to hear motivational speeches from leader Natalie Bennett and deputy leaders Shahrar Ali and Amelia Womack, on economy, climate change, energy, NHS and the living wage.

She added: "I have been to quite of few of these events but the atmosphere this weekend was better than at any previous ones."