By Richard Blackledge
Preston City Council are hoping to encourage voters to participate in the local elections on May 1 with a series of adverts printed on buses.
Preston Bus have co-operated with the electoral services to promote voter registration on 10 city centre buses. The adverts feature the message “1st of May is election day, use your vote”, together with the council logo and contact number.
Susan Harrison, head of electoral services, said: “We thought that advertising on the back of buses is very visual and that people would see the adverts and actually go out and vote. Hopefully people will realise that they can influence decisions that are made in their local area.”
The campaign is intended to boost low turnout in local elections. Last year’s turnout stood at only 35.6 % of the electorate.
Susan said feedback has been positive so far, but councillors should also help to boost turnout at the polls. She said: “People have actually rung up and said ‘I saw the advert on the back of the bus, that jogged my memory that an election was coming up’, so they’ve come into the office to check that they’re on the register or, if they want a postal vote, to see if we can sort that out for them.
“We will do everything we can, certainly getting people registered, but politicians also have a duty I think to make the public aware of why they should vote.”
Elections are held in 19 wards across Preston this year. The College, Moor Park and University wards will not be involved in the elections.
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