A FORMER RAF officer and a businesswoman have been named as the Conservative Party candidates to fight both St Helens constituencies at the General Election.

Paul Richardson and Gillian Keegan have been selected by their party to contest the seats left vacant by the departures of Shaun Woodward and Dave Watts.

Gillian Keegan will face former council leader Marie Rimmer in St Helens South and Whiston. A former pupil at Blackbrook St Mary’s, She started work at Delco Electronics in Kirkby aged 16.

She went on to study at Liverpool John Moores University and for the past 25 years has worked abroad in the car manufacturing, banking and information technology industries.

A councillor in Chichester, she said that she put her name forward to fight the seat “to help make a difference” to the people she grew up with, their children and grandchildren.

She cites apprenticeships and opportunities for school leavers and generating new local businesses as particular interests.

She is married to husband Michael and has two stepsons Max, 19, and Charlie, 18.

Paul Richardson, who will fight the St Helens North seat, is married to wife Julie who was born in Windle.

The father-of-two served in the RAF for 16 years before going on to work in financial services.

A former student at Edge Hill, who has lived in Southport and Ormskirk, he was and has also been the chairman of a successful London Chamber of Commerce, which attracted more than 8,000 members.

He has a keen interest in education and was previously an instructed on an Air Training Squadron.