NEXT WEEK'S ELECTION?

THE MOST important campaign in next week's council elections may already
have been lost.

Hard-hitting posters have sprung up around Carlisle aimed at getting young
people into the ballot booths on Thursday.

It is a campaign every local politician would back, yet it appears to have
been largely fruitless.

National and local experts are forecasting that turnout will be the lowest
on record as voters abandon grass-roots politics in droves. Seventeen seats
are up for grabs on Carlisle City Council, with all three group leaders up
for re-election.

Voters may already have noticed the traditional election door-knockers have
fallen strangely silent.

The Conservatives admit they are canvassing face-to-face in only five key
wards, while Labour are out and about in most - but not all - contested
areas. Neville Lishman, a Tory candidate in Belle Vue and the party's agent
for Carlisle and Penrith and the Border, admitted yesterday the city was
"probably" on course for a record low turnout.

"We have had more people than usual saying they are not going to vote," he
said. "But there are also a lot of people saying they have not made up
their minds yet."

The lowest turnouts - as little as 20 per cent - are likely to be in urban
wards with high numbers of council tenants.

That is both ironic and worrying, because the biggest single issue facing
the city council is housing stock transfer.

The district's 7,000 council tenants will vote in July on whether to hand
their homes over to Liverpool-based charity Riverside Housing, operating
locally as the Carlisle Housing Association.

Riverside has pledged to pump more than UKP 50 million into a massive
programme of repairs if given the go-ahead.

Government borrowing rules mean the housing association could borrow UKP 13
million more than the council renovating ageing stock in Raffles, Currock,
Upperby, Morton, Botcherby, Belah, Longtown, Brampton and Dalston.
Riverside admits that any money it uses will eventually have to come from
tenants' pockets.

And voters in Birmingham threw the picture into confusion when they
rejected a similar stock transfer earlier this month. All of which should
have set the scene for a lively election debate. But while the ruling
Conservative group are merrily talking up the benefits of stock transfer,
Labour have been curiously silent. The group have taken up a "neutral"
position and say they will abide by whatever the tenants decide is best.

Liberal Democrat leader John Guest has spoken out strongly against the
switch, but his team do not have a joint position.

Conservative insiders say the confusing messages being given out by other
groups is playing into their hands.

The opposition has tried to make similar political capital over plans to
build more than 1,000 new houses to the south-west of the city, the
so-called "Morton Masterplan".

The scheme will go to public inquiry after a Tory-dominated planning
committee decided last June it was "minded to approve" development. Labour
and Lib Dem candidates in Denton Holme, Dalston and Morton have been
talking up their opposition to the plan, which they say will clog up city
streets with traffic.

The danger is that voters will agree with the Conservatives that the matter
is out of council hands and a matter for Government inspectors. And then
there are the side issues and minority candidates.

Former mayor Colin Paisley will again stand for the Legalise Cannabis
Alliance after a disappointing showing in last year's General election. Mr
Paisley, 65, who is has a serious liver condition, will campaign not only
on reform of drug law but also as an opponent of stock transfer and mass
demolition on the Raffles estate.