IT seems that it was not necessarily apathy which kept people away from the polls for last Thursday's local elections.

As our story tonight reveals at least one voter, Amanda Collingborn from Farnworth, declined to vote because she had no information about the candidates in her ward.

Tory leader Cllr Norman Critchley who labelled the low turnout "an absolute disgrace", has conceded that Mrs Collingborn has every right to be angry if she had not been canvassed.

And Brian Iddon MP says he apologises if she was not given the chance to meet the Labour candidate.

But going to the heart of the matter Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Barbara Ronson stressed the massive manpower needed to canvass voters.

Ideally every candidate should meet every potential voter, but that clearly is not going to happen. While we have some sympathy with Mrs Collingborn, and others like her, we cannot agree with her stance.

After all, the party leaders outlined their policies in the BEN for all to read and the candidates were listed too.

We agree that nobody should have voted without knowing what candidates stood for, but there were ways of finding out.

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