Chancellor George Osborne may be used to wearing a hard hat as the general election countdown reaches fever pitch – but it was for purely safety reasons on his visit to Bury today.

He called into the William Hare Group factory to see how the firm's 130 staff work producing steel for building projects at their base in Castlecroft Road.

He toured the factory floor and met staff, including apprentices, as part of a visit in support of the Conservatives' Bury North candidate David Nuttall.

Mr Osborne praised the firm and added: "The British economy is growing, the economy here is Bury is growing and the leaders of this business are telling me that, five or six years ago, they stopped hiring staff and now they are hiring more people and training more apprentices. This is what goes right when economic policy goes right."