Ten candidates are standing for two Bitterne Park city council seats in the May 3 local election. They include independent candidates, as well as those from small and larger political parties. We invited each to contribute 400 words - see our later article here.

Conservative Ivan White is defending his council seat, while a by-election following the resignation of fellow Tory Phil Williams means a second seat is up for grabs: the candidate with the second largest number of votes will be up for re-election in 2014 when Williams’ term would have ended.

At the last Bitterne Park local election in 2011, Tory Peter Baillie retained his seat, beating Labour by 585 votes. The Lib Dems came home third.

bitternepark.info is currently endeavouring to contact all ward candidates to offer them the opportunity to put information in front of electors via the site. If any candidate hasn’t heard from us by Tuesday 17 April, feel free to get in touch for more information.

The following is a list of candidates nominated for the election for the Bitterne Park ward, according to the council’s website.

We invited each to contribute 400 words - see our later article here.