‘Vote? We didn’t know there was an election’

OUR survey results might make grim reading for the political candidates hoping to become Greater Manchester’s first-ever mayor on May 4.

More than one-in-three people – 36 per cent – did not even know the election was happening.

The figure was particularly high in Rochdale, Oldham and Stockport and among younger people.

Meanwhile, almost exactly half knew nothing at all about what powers he or she will have.

This chimes with the feedback from campaigns currently leafleting and knocking on doors across the region.

Sources on Labour candidate Andy Burnham’s campaign, for example, say that while a lot of voters know who he is – giving him an in-built advantage – the harder task is explaining what the mayoral position actually is and why people should care.

The overall lack of awareness demonstrated in the survey will be particularly worrying for Labour, not only because a low turn-out traditionally is unhelpful for them, but because half those who responded voted Labour at the last election, yet only a third decided to do so on May 4.

Among 18-30-year-olds a massive 55pc had no idea a mayoral election was looming, while in Rochdale nearly half had not heard about it.

More broadly the responses showed roughly which mayoral issues readers were most concerned about.

We asked people to rate eight main categories over which the mayor will have power or influence, or in which candidates have already shown a particular interest.

They were health and social care, affordable housing, homelessness, mental health, transport fares, transport improvements, investment and job creation, and stopping green belt development – the last because extremely vocal campaigns have sprung up on this issue over the last six months, with the mayor having a direct say over whether the green belt map is torn up.

Health and social care narrowly came out top, although that should be seen in the context of the type of people who carried out the survey – which included relatively high numbers of public sector workers, Remain and Labour voters.

More than one-in-four of those who filled it out put health as their top concern, with a similar number ranking it as their second priority.

Closely following health was affordable housing, with one-in-five people putting that as their number one issue.

This is borne out elsewhere in the survey, with more than one-in-three people saying they spent more than 30pc of their income on rent or mortgage costs – considered by many experts to be the threshold at which it becomes unaffordable, while 40pc of people said they could not afford to get a deposit together for a mortgage.

Affordable housing was followed by homelessness and mental health as priorities, although significantly fewer people put these as their top concern.

That was followed by investment, transport improvements and fares. Notably green belt development was by far the lowest priority for those who responded, despite campaigns against it having gained huge publicity in recent months – although it should be noted a quarter of those who took part were in Manchester, which has virtually no green belt.