THE Green Party has announced it will not stand a candidate in Bolton West.

Alan Johnson, chairman of the Bolton Greens, said a lack of funding meant the party had decided to focus its resources fighting Bolton North East and Bolton South East, seats currently held by Labour MPs David Crausby and Yasmin Qureshi respectively.

He said: “The party is not funded by big business like the Tories and UKIP, and the Labour party is funded by the trade unions.

“We are a party that relies on party members to support all our activities, and elections are quite an expensive thing.

“We have got to focus our funding and our resources, and after discussion with party members we decided to select Bolton South East and Bolton North East.”

The Green candidates in both areas will be voted on this week.