Milnshaw: Clare Pritchard responds to personal accusations

Milnshaw Councillor Clare Pritchard has played down reports of the forthcoming local election in her ward being used to settle family disputes. She has been a Labour representative on HBC for eight years and last year also won the County Council seat for the area but has been repeatedly accused by her father of bringing the family into disrepute by standing against him in elections.

Clare won her seat in 2006 and joined her father, then-Labour Councillor Malcolm Pritchard, as representative for the ward of Milnshaw but relations deteriorated some time after that and the pair now rarely speak. Malcolm lost his ward seat in 2011 to Cllr Paul Cox before finally losing his County Council seat in 2013 to his daughter. Public statements from Mr Pritchard pour scorn on Clare for standing against him in elections but Clare remains steadfast.

She said, "I have heard what has been said about me by my father and it is not very nice but the simple truth is that I stood up for my ward when we were still on speaking terms and I will not stop doing that now that we aren't simply to give him chance to get back on the Council."

She added, "People like to know what they are voting for and I have been Labour all my life. My dad, in contrast, has been a one-man rainbow coalition. He has aligned himself with Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, went Independent and has now got into bed with UKIP. That isn't sticking to your values, it is backing what you believe to be the winning horse."

Clare will be defending her seat to hopefully win a third term on 22nd May.