Labour has launched its manifesto for the South East region by boasting of its investment in public services and building projects in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The party, which launched the document in Southampton yesterday, highlighted a range of schemes the Government had funded locally.

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The manifesto, which featured a slew of statistical claims about Labour’s support for businesses, extra police officers and shorter hospital waiting times, said: “We are also investing in road improvements – £376m to improve the A3 Hindhead tunnel [and] an £8.6m project is constructing an interchange terminal at Ryde on the Isle of Wight which will benefit around 2.5m users and help regenerate the town.”

It added: “We have funded the refurbishment of two elderly care wards at the Royal South Hants Hospital and built a third.”

On the economic downturn, the manifesto said: “Unemployment, repossessions and bankruptcies have all risen less sharply than in previous recessions. The number of people looking for work in the South East fell in the last quarter. That didn’t happen by accident, but because people and Government worked together.”

Labour said 90,000 families in the region would be more than £200 a year better off under its planned Toddler Tax Credit, which would be introduced in 2012.

But Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, whose party is leading the race in some opinion polls, said voters wanted a change from Labour, which only the Lib Dems could guarantee.

He said: “The general election campaign is starting to come to life for the simple reason that a growing number of people are starting to believe, starting to hope that we can do something different this time.”

Tory leader David Cameron said: “If you want real change, if you want change to happen, if you want the job of change to be completed and done, there’s only one way to get it, and that is a clean break with what we have now, a decisive result, a Conservative Party that had the passion and leadership to change itself that is now able to change our country.”