A THIRD of the Wigan Council seats will be contested at next month's elections.

Council leader Lord Peter Smith, Deputy leader Cllr Tom Sherratt and former mayor Cllr Stan Simmons will be among the 24 councillors up for re-election across the borough on May 2 when they stand for Leigh Central, Lightshaw and Hindley Green respectively.

Currently Labour has a monopoly of power holding 69 of the total 72 seats. Two Liberal Democrats and one Conservative hold the remaining three seats.

In Leigh and Wigan 236,077 people are eligible to vote but at the last election held in 2000 just under one fifth of people cast their vote.

Battling it out for the 24 seats available will be 24 Labour candidates, 19 Conservatives, nine Socialist Alliance candidates, eight Liberal Democrats, five candidates from the newly formed Community Action party, four Independents and one British National Party candidate.

Three couples have put themselves forward for election. Labour Cllr Susan Loudon is standing for re-election in Atherton while her husband Philip is the Labour candidate for Hindsford ward.

Meanwhile Conservative husband and wife Andrew and Rosina Oxley are standing in Hope Carr and Hindley Green respectively.

Seeking votes

And another Tory duo -- Derek and Ann Davies from Leigh will be seeking votes in the Leigh East and Atherton ward contests.

Cllr Fred Walker, the GM Fire and Civil Defence Authority chairman is standing unopposed in Bedford-Astley while council Leader Lord Smith faces opposition from Community Action Party candidate Daniel Burrows and Timothy Matthews for the Conservatives.

Deputy Leader Cllr Tom Sherratt will be vying with Conservative James Grundy and the Community Action Party's Peter Franzen in Lightshaw.

Hindley man Michael Doherty is standing as the Socialist Alliance candidate in Ince while Golborne resident Robert Rees is the Conservative candidate there.

Meanwhile in Langtree, Hindley woman Freda Graham is standing for the Liberal Democrats.