David Nuttall - Bury North

This week has seen the gun fired to start this year’s local elections. The ‘gun’ in this case is the publication of the notice by the local authority announcing there is to be an election and in the case of Bury this notice was published last week and dated 27th March. Anyone interested in standing for election then has a few days to submit the correctly completed nomination papers to the returning officer to ensure their name goes on the ballot paper. For political parties who intend to contest every Ward this is a period of maximum activity. One of the greatest fears Party organisers have is that a Ward is left without a Candidate on the ballot paper simply because of a failure to comply with the nominating procedure. So I have had a busy few days. Last night we also had our Constituency Annual General Meeting which as is custom I addressed and I stressed that whatever the opinion polls might say we must never be complacent we must always strive to maximise our vote in every Ward.