A STAY-AWAY councillor who retained his seat so he could vote in a leadership battle is set to be deselected from his seat within a fortnight.

Graham Pound, who represents Corporation Park on Blackburn with Darwen Council, enraged fellow Conservatives when he refused to quit despite admitting he was doing little to earn his £350-a-month council allowance.

But he is ineligible to stand at next year's local elections because he no longer lives in the borough.

In an e-mail leaked to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph last month, Coun Pound told colleagues he no longer lived or worked in Blackburn, and felt he should quit as a councillor there and then.

He had not attended many meetings at the town hall, he claimed, and had no intention of moving back from Manchester to Blackburn, a town he was scathing of in the e-mail.

His decision to stay came in the run-up to a battle for the leadership of the Tory group, in which Coun Colin Rigby defeated a challenge from Coun Alan Cottam.

And it emerged that former mayor Coun John Williams had urged Coun Pound to stay on in order to vote for Coun Cottam.

The selection of the three Conservative candidates for the Corporation Park ward is set to take place within the next fortnight.

Three nominations were received before the closing date.

Corporation Park councillor Paul McGurty has confirmed that he is one of them, while chairman of the Corporation Park ward group, Jeff Stone, said he and young Tory Karl Turner has also stood. Mr Turner stood in the controversial Mill Hill by-election last year, which the BNP won.

Mr Stone said: "The nominations are in sealed envelopes so until they are opened I cannot be 100 per cent sure who has been nominated.

"But I know both myself and Karl have nominated ourselves, and Paul has also said he is standing.

"As it stands, Graham couldn't stand next year because he doesn't live or work in the borough and I don't expect his name to be in one of the three envelopes.

"I can assure voters that next year, when they go to the polls, they will have three Conservative candidates who are determined to work hard and represent the ward very well."

Corporation Park is set to be one of the key battlegrounds of next year's elections, as Labour look to cling on to their 10-seat majority.

Labour took one of the seats from the Tories in the 2001 local elections.

Coun Pound has declined to speak abut the matter.