Bury Council is under Conservative control but with an overall majority of just one seat. A third of the seats are up for election on May 6. So far as the General Election is concerned Bury currently has two Labour held seats. Bury North is target 48 although Bury South as Target 225 would generally be considered beyond reach by even the more optimistic of us.
So far as the ward representation when last contested Bury North breaks down as follows. Of the eight relevant wards there are six won by the Conservatives when they last came up in 2008 – wih just two for Labour including one by a rather narrow margin. This is a pretty positive base for our candidate David Nuttall to be fighting from.
What about Bury South? Just a bit of fun as Peter Snow used to say. Actually it looks as if our candidate Michelle Wiseman might be in with a shout after all. The last time the nine relevant wards were contested there were four to the Conservatives, three to the Lib Dems and only two to Labour. Furthermore in a byelection last year Labour only just hung on in a ward they had won comfortably the year before.
Since the Conservatives started running Bury Council in 2007 it has improved to being an excellent, four star council on Audit Commission ratings. Under Labour there were sharp Council Tax increases which have been checked by the Conservatives but it remains a relatively high tax council so I hope more can been achieved in this area. There are some robust, common sense efforts to achieve better value for money despite Labour scaremongering.