Nominations for the County Durham Council elections on 1 May closed at midday today. While final details of nominations have still to appear on the web for three of the seven districts, it looks as though we will have around 90 candidates.

Lib Dems have full slates in Durham City (22 seats) and Wear Valley (16). In Chester-le-Street (14) we have 8 candidates, Easington (24) we have 19, Derwentside (22) we have 15 and in Sedgefield (22) we have 14. The remaining 6 seats are in Teesdale where we decided not to contest for strategic reasons.

The notable change is our challenge in Easington where we are fielding a large slate for the first time in many years. Indeed, if we had not stood, there would have been 4 areas where Labour would have been elected unopposed. Indeed, so bad has it been in the past out there that in the District Elections last May around 40 Labour councillors were elected unopposed. Well now they have to fight for their seats and a good thing too.

On a grimmer matter, however, for the very first time there are BNP candidates putting up in Durham City district, a total of 8 in 5 wards. Interestingly half of them have addresses in Shildon.

While I always urge everyone to use their vote (after all if you don’t vote you cannot complain), I hope that this extreme right wing bunch will be well and truly shunned by everyone in the areas concerned.

Local Council elections take place on 1st May. This will be your opportunity to vote for two representatives on the new unitary council for County
Durham.

You can only vote in elections if your name is on the Register of Electors and I am aware that there are a lot of houses in the area with no-one registered.

In addition, some residents may have moved into the area since the new register came into force on 1 December last year.

Moved home? Coming up to 18? Just not on the register?

If you’ve moved since the Register was compiled or have been missed off, you can get your details amended. All you have to do is to fill in a Voter Registration Form which you must sign yourself, someone else cannot do it for you.

Registration forms are available from the City Council’s office at 17 Claypath. Alternatively, print off the registration form below:-

Voter Registration Form

Applications must be signed by the elector and returned to the Electoral Registration Office, Durham City Council, 17 Claypath, Durham DH1 1RH.

Anyone may apply for a postal vote at an election. Or you can apply for someone else to vote for you if, for example, you are blind or disabled, or if you will be away from home during an election. Contact the Electoral Registration Office at 17 Claypath for the forms (or see below).

There is a deadline of 5 pm. eleven working days before the day of an election for the receipt of new postal vote applications and six working days before the day of election for the receipt of new proxy vote applications.

Forms to apply for a Postal Vote or a Proxy Vote can be downloaded from the following links:-

Postal Vote Application Form

Proxy Vote Application Form

Again they must be returned to the 17 Claypath address.