THE Conservative Party has chosen a local ward councillor as its candidate to fight for the Bolton South-east seat in the next General Election.

Cllr Andy Morgan was yesterday adopted by the officers and members of the Bolton South-east Conservative Association to be their Prospective Parliamentary candidate.

The seat is currently occupied by Labour MP Dr Brian Iddon, who is retiring from the House of Commons at the next election.

Cllr Morgan represents the Hulton Ward on Bolton Council and is the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Health and is also the council’s Health Scrutiny chairman.

He said: “I am honoured and privileged to have been selected to fight Bolton South-east for the Conservatives at the next General Election. The good folk of Bolton South-east have been taken for granted by the Labour Party for far too long and I will work from now until the next election to give them a real choice and alternative to Labour.” He added: “The continued neglect and under-funding by the Labour party of the smaller communities that make up Bolton South-east such as Little Lever, Farnworth and Kearsley, is a disgrace. It is imperative that their individualism and separate identity is treasured and protected and I will campaign to do that.”

Chairman of the Bolton South-east Conservative Association, Aiden Meagan, added: “We are delighted to have a local candidate of Andy’s calibre to fight and challenge Labour for Bolton South-east and we all look forward to working with him to give the residents a real and credible alternative to the Labour Party candidate.”

Cllr Morgan will be up against Labour’s candidate Yasmin Qureshi, who is fighting to become Britain’s first female Muslim MP.

The Pakistani-born criminal lawyer, aged 44, who currently lives in Watford, was chosen from a list of 53 candidates.

Dr Iddon, who has held the Bolton South-east constituency for Labour since 1997, announced his retirement after 30 year career in politics in 2006.

He was elected to the safe Labour seat with a 21,311 majority in 1997 after the previous sitting Labour MP, David Young, was deselected by the constituency.

Dr Iddon had already spent 20 years as a Bolton councillor and had been chairman of the housing committee.