FOR many Britons the thought of voting in a local election is about as appealing as walking around barefoot at the municipal pool in the hope of picking up a nice crop of verrucas — that’s assuming that they thought about it at all.

In the 2004 council elections, 41 per cent of the population voted; two years earlier in London it was 32 per cent.Local Government Chronicle (April 27) reports that radical democratic surgery may be the only answer. Pam Giddy, the director of the recent Power inquiry into revitalising local democracy, recommended “an electoral system that would better represent the feelings of people. With regard to the local system, the political parties don’t seem to have many people on the ground. People are very concerned about their locality and they want to be politically active but councils are the layer of government that’s trusted least,” she says.

There’s more stress ahead for the three main party leaders. In a separate article, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, the directors of LGC Election Centre at the University of Plymouth, set a number of council seat markers by which messrs Blair, Cameron and Campbell can judge their parties’ progress. “All have more to lose than to gain,” the authors say, “and each party’s leader could be seriously damaged by poor results.”

But however few people vote — and no matter the political affiliation of those they elect — council officers will be steeling themselves for the inevitable arrival of a number of new councillors. Alan Warner, the director of people and property at Hertfordshire County Council, advises officers to approach changes with equanimity. “It can be frustrating for council officers to have to reverse everything they have been doing over the past few years because . . . new members . . . want to stamp their mark on the authority.”

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