Every four years we get the chance to influence directly the way our council is run.

It is a crime to waste that opportunity. And yet at the last local election, the majority of people did not bother to vote.

It can be easy to take democracy for granted. But we only need look at the trouble elsewhere in the world caused by the breakdown of democracy to remind us of its importance.

Every one of us is affected daily by the decisions our councils take.

Tomorrow is your last chance to make your voice heard in that process until 2003.Take it.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.