In 1993, the Green Man pub in Loughborough, Leicestershire was buried. Over its grave, developers built the Carillon Court shopping centre, housing a Vodafone, New Look, Vision Express and many other British high street stalwarts. Below the new shopping complex, the Green Man remains, almost entirely intact. Though the intervening years have taken their toll – bar stools are cloaked in dust and the beer taps have long run dry – the pub is still there. Pint glasses are stacked on the shelves and a mural on the wall shows knights galloping across grasslands. A sign reads, ‘Kenco Coffee Served Here’. Disappear down the trap door as a Loughborough Echo reporter did a few years ago, and you can walk straight back into the 1990s.

I get the sense that some people in Loughborough would like to slip down this trapdoor. While 1993 saw mass unemployment and cuts to public services, the city held its position as a thriving centre of British industry, with engineering and pharmaceutical companies providing skilled jobs for local people. Over recent years, however, the factories have closed and outlook has become bleaker. Loughborough voted to leave the European Union by 50.09 percent. Three years on from the referendum, and the result doesn’t appear to have mobilised any real change. Last year, a cross-party group of Brexiteers marched on local Conservative MP Nicky Morgan’s office, demanding that she resign over her criticism of pursuing a hard Brexit.

Morgan announced last month that she would not be standing for reelection in December, and Loughborough now looks to be a key marginal seat. The Tories hold a majority of just 4,269 votes here.

The Joker 250 jobs for the town

Sally first moved to Loughborough in the 1970s. “The Brush factory used to hire thousands, but over the years it has declined in numbers to the point where I don’t know if anyone is still working there,” she says, referring to the Brush Group, an electrical generators manufacturer that opened a factory in Loughborough in 1889. “My husband didn’t work at Brush, but the coach-building factory he worked in has shut down.”

Last year, the Brush Group sent home 270 of its Loughborough shop floor workers, responding to the fall in demand for gas- and steam- powered generators. It’s not the only Loughborough employer to have made redundancies. In 1998, the plant that had printed Ladybird books since the 19th century closed. Hosiery manufacturers Towles Hosiery and HJ Hall have both ceased production in recent years. In 2010, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca closed its research centre, taking 1,200 jobs with it. While Loughborough University provides employment for many in the town, and proposals for a new science park promise to create thousands of jobs, many of those who would have worked in Loughborough’s engineering sector now find employment at the East Midlands airport or the service sector, sometimes on zero-hours contracts.

Back in Loughborough town centre, it’s starting to get dark. People have finished work and the square is beginning to empty. Outside a Chinese restaurant, I speak to Sam, 28, who has been living on the streets on-and-off for ten years until last week, when he was given a flat by the council. Sam blames Loughborough’s homeless population on the lack of jobs available for people in the area. “Students get the first pick,” Sam says. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but that’s just how it is. Sometimes, people like me can get work packing for Pertemps [a local recruitment agency] just around this corner, but the population is growing and they are turning more and more people away.”

Clearly, employment opportunities are a key issue for voters here. A leaflet for Loughborough Labour candidate Stuart Brady, who stands against Hunt at the polls in December, features the empty Brush factory, along with the words: “Loughborough used to be a town of good jobs.” If they come to power, Labour have pledged to start climate apprenticeship programme that could provide 320,000 positions in sustainable construction, renewable energy, forestry and agriculture. It’s hoped that such a scheme would fill the gap left by the erasure of skilled manual labour jobs. Loughborough is well placed for a role in the green industrial revolution, with its university a world leader in research on hydrogen fuel cells.

Twenty-five years after Carillon Court’s construction, many of the shops built on top of the Green Man are boarded up, while those still open are at risk. Claire’s Accessories filed for bankruptcy last year and Topshop narrowly avoided going into administration this summer. The shopping centre is beginning to look like a shell on top of a shell.

Towards the end of our conversation, Sam points out the iron bars over the nearby shop fronts. “It’s to stop homeless people squatting in the doorways,” he says.

Going back to the 1990s isn’t a good idea but Loughborough does need something new. Something that looks like a future.

@annielord8 / @wunmio

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Ahead of the 2019 General Election, VICE UK has been travelling to key marginals with large student populations, to meet the people living there and find out what’s most important to them. Read more from our Swing Party series here.