One name seems to be on the lips of almost everyone in Lansbury Park. “Nigel,” says Myrna Thomas affectionately. “I just believe everything he says.”

“I know Nigel,” says retired car trader Mike Lawrence, in reference to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Mike sits on a rusty metal bench as we talk, a dumped drinks can littering the roughly cut grass around him. “I’ve been to meet him. He came to the pub and had a pint. He seems a sensible bloke, genuine.”

Farage has been to Caerphilly in several election campaigns including in 2016 and 2019, close to where we meet Myrna and Mike. The town’s giant medieval castle, one of the largest in Europe, looms over the streets of Lansbury Park. Here the challenges are some of the most entrenched in Wales. Unemployment is high, incomes are low, few have high levels of education and many have health issues.

Until now the grey pebble dashed terraces of flats and houses have been part of a constituency, Caerphilly, that has been staunchly Labour. Yet the recent changes to benefits announced by Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall and Chancellor Rachel Reeves strike hard here.

Many receive personal independence payments (Pip) and are unsure if they are at risk. “I hope Reform gets in next May,” says retired carer Sian Denatale who is on Pip after she developed arthritis in her spine and leg. She moved to Lansbury Park because she felt her home in the east end of London “wasn’t home anymore”. “This is the worst government ever; taking from pensioners, taking from disabled people. It’s all about money,” she says.

Stopping outside Lansbury’s chippy and shop where locals sporadically pop out of their homes for a gossip, Myrna says she had voted Labour but now she feels let down. Asked what she’s most worried about she says immigration and potentially losing some of her benefit payment. “Labour aren’t doing what they said they would,” she says. “They’re just putting everything up and making cuts. I feel we’re being ignored.”

The St James area which makes up most of Lansbury Park is regularly named one of the most deprived areas of Wales. It ranks eighth for lowest incomes in Wales, fourth for highest unemployment and seventh for poorest health. Most of the people we speak to tell us they receive Pip payments and are worried about their future. Most tell us they will vote Reform in the Welsh elections for the Senedd next May. We can’t find anyone at Lansbury Park who’ll be voting for Labour.

It doesn’t matter that some of the issues many here are most angry about – immigration and welfare cuts – are the responsibility of Westminster and not the Welsh Government. People are angry and continuously tell us they want “change”.

Mike, who grew up in nearby mining village Senghenydd, tells us his mother and father were staunch Labour supporters but he has voted for the Conservatives in recent years. Next year he’ll be voting for Reform. He likes Reform so much he’s even considering standing as a councillor for them in the future.

“People here are in deeper poverty than they were,” he says. “After next May Reform will be in power in Wales. Nigel will bring Labour down – mark my words. It is time for change. Nothing could happen between now and next May which would change my mind. Neither Labour nor the Tories have delivered on their manifestos. Labour’s manifesto didn’t mention anything about cuts, and yet it’s all they’ve done since they got in. Poor people now believe they’re being picked on.”

The Senedd election will see Reform, which now has around 8,000 members in Wales, standing for seats in the Welsh Parliament for the first time. The party hopes to take advantage of a new proportional representation electoral system next May. They came second in 13 of the 32 Welsh constituencies in the general election in 2024, securing 16.9% of the vote across Wales. Reform’s share of the vote in Wales in 2024 was also greater than Plaid Cymru, who won four seats.

Recent projections suggest Reform will be one of the three biggest parties in Wales at the election. Its Wales spokesman Oliver Lewis and MP Liz Saville Roberts of rival party Plaid Cymru have both said Reform could win.

Winning in Caerphilly would help make that possible. The seat in the Senedd has been represented by Welsh Labour since the Senedd began in 1999. In Westminster the seat has always had a Labour MP save for in 1981 when Ednyfed Hudson Davies defected to the Social Democrat Party.

In the general election last year Reform came third with 7,754 votes, just behind Plaid Cymru and 7,000 behind Labour. Yet in May next year it’ll be part of the Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly and Rhymni super-seat which will, like all 16 new Welsh mega constituencies, send six representatives to Cardiff Bay. The question at the moment looks like it will not be whether a Caerphilly Reform Senedd member will be among them but how many of them will be Reform.

Hazel Fitzell rides through the lively estate on a warm spring day on her scooter and is routinely stopped by her neighbours. She’s one of 275,000 people in Wales who are receiving Pip – more than 10% of people of working age.

“I’ve always been very astute when it comes to money,” 70-year-old Hazel says, explaining she’s just cooked a pot of stew which will see her through the week. “I have only ever done what I can afford and that’s how I still live my life. It’s how I get by. I make a big pot of stew or a bolognese and put it in the freezer and it’s there then. I’m very careful with the heating. Mind you, I’ve worked all my life and I don’t think I should have to live the way I do.”

Hazel, whose life took a turn for the worse when the contents of a deep fat fryer landed on her in a work accident more than 10 years ago when she was working as a chef, has been counting the pennies for some time. She became a chef after leaving school at 14 and went on to run a pub in the town for years. Following the accident she was left with multiple blood clots causing her to need stents in her legs. Days later doctors told her the accident had also led to a brain tumour.

Her modest Pip benefit means everything to her and she is highly likely to meet the threshold to keep it, but she knows many others on the estate who will likely lose the payment. “Are people really going to lose that payment because they might be able to put a meal in the microwave? That’s not a Labour government. Look at the cold weather payments too. I’m not a sponger who has come to this country expecting this and that. I’ve worked and paid my taxes all my life and I do believe I and others my age deserve so much better than this. Older people here and across the country are making a decision between heating or eating.”

She’s voted Labour for years but didn’t vote in 2024 and won’t be voting next year either. “I can’t vote for a party which has done this,” she shouts. “You ask anyone here – they’ll tell you the same. I put my trust in Labour – as did my family. But not now. No way. I don’t think Labour will be in power in Wales after next May. I really don’t.”

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Chancellor Reeves told MPs that the welfare bill was unsustainable and growing faster than in other developed countries. Gary Collins, 65, an amputee who will also highly likely keep his £80 a week Pip benefit, says: “The way it goes around here there are a lot of genuine people on Pip but there are also a lot of people who aren’t genuine and they’re still getting Pip. But that shouldn’t mean changing it so some people who genuinely need that payment get punished.”

The former factory worker and labourer who had to stop work when he lost his leg after an infection adds: “Labour has hit the people here for six. You wouldn’t have expected it from a Labour government. I won’t be voting for anyone next year I don’t think.”

Experts aren’t sure how the disillusionment people express on the streets of Lansbury Park will translate into votes when it comes to May’s Welsh election next year. James Breckwoldt, a research associate for the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, said just over half of people who voted Reform in Wales in 2024 had voted Conservative in 2019. Just 10% of 2024 Reform voters had voted Labour in 2019 and around 15% didn’t vote at all.

He said his research showed that the best demographic predictor of voting Reform in 2024 was not having a university degree, while people who voted Reform in 2024 also tended to have a much stronger sense of British identity and a much weaker sense of Welsh identity. When asked what the single most important issue was when deciding how to vote in 2024 over half (56%) of Reform voters said immigration, which was much higher than other parties’ voters. Immigration was named by 23% of Conservatives, 4% of Plaid voters, and 2% of Labour voters. Only a small number of Reform voters said cost of living (4%), the NHS (2%), or the general state of the economy (2%) was their most important issue.

Dr Joseph Phillips, an expert on political psychology at Cardiff University, said it was far from clear how the mood in places like Lansbury Park would translate into votes. “What remains to be seen is how Reform can translate general support in the polls to organisation on the ground. Ground campaigns do still matter. It might be harder for them to field higher quality candidates, to promote themselves in a given area, and also the longer they don’t name someone to be a candidate for first minister – that’s going to create challenges.”