HOW refreshing last week to read of the call by Pendle’s new mayor for more young people to become involved in local politics.

It says a lot about the point he is making that Coun Nadeem Ahmed should find himself being singled out as Lancashire’s youngest first citizen at the not-that-young age of 32.

He is almost a veteran already in political terms as he has already been a Liberal Democrat councillor in Nelson’s Whitefield ward for seven years, but makes a very sound argument when he says that not nearly enough young people are showing an interest in their immediate communities.

He said: “There is a real shortage of younger councillors, particularly young Asian women.

“Most of my friends just think it is boring, or something for older people, but more young people need to stand up for their communities and help make their areas a better place.

"There is no use complaining that nothing is ever done, or that something is bad.

"You can do something about it and make a difference. There is a lot of talent out there and it could be put to very good use locally.”

He’s quite right of course about young people, women, and particularly young Asian women.

Decisions on priorities, and where dwindling amounts of cash should be spent, are being made now in local government which will affect today’s twenty-year-olds for the rest of their lives.

It would be great if they stood up to be counted and brought a new outlook and atmosphere into our town halls, many of which sorely need revitalising.

Councils need to be composed of a cross-section of the community they serve.

Blackburn with Darwen, for example, statistically has a population which is much younger than the national average, but is barely represented in the council chamber.

Too many councillors are retired, or semi-retired and, like me, in their fifties or sixties – and hardly best placed to make decisions about important areas like education when they might not have had any personal involvement with it through their own children for at least a decade.

How refreshing, and perhaps brave too, of Coun Ahmed to emphasise encouragement for the involvement of more young Asian women in local government.

What a contrast to the attitude of leading Blackburn councillor and Lancashire Council of Mosques chairman Coun Salim Mulla who spoke out two weeks ago against a report calling for a greater involvement of women in the running of mosques.

He accepted that there is not a single woman on the management committees of any of the county’s 100 mosques, but asserted: ‘There is no need to change a situation that is working’.