THE British National Party has confirmed that it is eyeing council seats in Lancaster for the local elections in May.

The controversial nationalist party, which has recently won seats in Blackburn and Burnley, is looking to strengthen its presence throughout Lancashire.

This week the BNP's national spokesman, Phil Edwards, told the Citizen that the party's advisory council was currently discussing which seats to contest.

He confirmed that they plan to field as many candidates as possible at elections throughout Lancashire, including the city of Lancaster.

And, as a member of the advisory council, he also said that Lan-caster's Ryelands estate had been mentioned.

"We're doing very well in Lancashire and we want to target areas where we think we have a good chance of getting more seats," said Mr Edwards.

"In Lancashire we've come from nowhere to win four seats and we've only been active there for about eight months. Yes, Lancaster is one of the areas we're looking at. We might put one or two up there.

"We have found that we're picking up a lot of disillusioned tra-ditional Labour voters. The advisory com-mittee is meeting in a few weeks time to finalise plans for the elections."

When asked what he knew of Lancaster, Mr Edwards added: "The only time I visited Lancaster was to take my daughter round the university. One of the first things we saw was a poster for a lesbian disco, so I refused to let her go there.

"I'm not having her study among such degeneracy."

Residents on Ryelands were unimpressed with the possibility of the BNP trying to capture the seat at the local elections.

Mr Jason Capstick, who owns a shop on the estate, told the Citizen: "They've never shown any interest in the local community and are only in it for their own political ends. If they do come round here I can't see that many local people will vote for them.

"I hope they stay away. It's been very settled on the estate for the last few months and we don't want them here causing trouble just to try and win votes."

January 9, 2003 09:00