Candidates for the three major political parties are set to go to the hustings in a battle to unlock Bradford's hung council and gain an overall majority.

The two years of deadlock, following the rout of Labour after a decade of control, carried on with a Tory leadership propped up by an ever-growing Liberal Democrat group.

And this year's elections are likely to be close fought as Labour aims to gain ten seats while the Tories need five to get overall control on Britain's fourth biggest local authority.

It will be an election with strict security measures in view of violence in some previous years, and the council and police are in talks over measures for polling stations and counts.

The Tory and Liberal Democrat candidates include council leader Councillor Margaret Eaton - who is defending Bingley Rural, which includes Cullingworth and Denholme - and leader of the Liberal Democrat group Councillor Jeanette Sunderland.

Tory executive member for the environment Anne Hawkesworth and the party's health and housing chief Kris Hopkins (Worth Valley) are seeking re-election.

Labour councillors defending their seats in Keighley include the Deputy Lord Mayor, Irene Ellison-Wood (Keighley West).

The Green party is fighting to win 12 seats in the district, hoping for more councillors to join its sole existing councillor David Ford.

And there is an all-out bid by the Liberal Democrat group to win more seats across the district as it contests all 30 wards.

There are four independent candidates, including two in local wards.

The election will see the Liberals defending just three seats, the Tories ten, and Labour 17.

The present composition of the hung council is Labour 38, Tories 36, Liberal Democrats 11, Greens one and three independents.

And the result on May 2 is all down to the 336,000 people in the district who are eligible to vote this year.

Voters in three Craven District Council wards locally - Aire Valley with Lothersdale, Glusburn and Sutton - will also be going to the polls that day.

Craven Council is currently made up of 17 Conservative councillors, 12 Independents and five Liberal Democrats.

election line-up

Bradford Council

Bingley Rural: Margaret Eaton (Con), John Francis Love (Green), David Miles Brown (Lab), Laura Jane Cole (Lib Dem).

Craven: Eric Dawson (Con), Francis Melvyn Harrison (Lab), Sam Micklem (Lib Dem).

Keighley North: Mark Francis Startin (Con), Maxine Anne Hepworth (Lab), James Stewart Main (Lib Dem).

Keighley South: David John McKay (Con), John Prestage (Lab), Edward John Hallmann (Lib Dem).

Keighley West: Nancy Holdsworth (Con), Brian Hudson (Ind), Irene Ellison-Wood (Lab), Christopher John Campbell Brown (Lib Dem).

Worth Valley: Kris Hopkins (Con), David Samuels (Ind), Mark Curtis (Lab), Richard William Quayle (Lib Dem)

Craven Council

Aire Valley with Lothersdale: Patricia Fairbank (Con), Robert Greaves (Con), Mark Andrew Wheeler (Lib Dem).

Glusburn: Ian Bannister (Con), Jennifer Ann Wood (Con), Philip Melvin Barrett (Ind), Arthur Dixon (Ind), Peter Kenneth Seward (Ind).

Sutton: Barbara Elaine Barwick-Nicholson (Con), Dee Pollitt (Con), Ken Hart (Ind), Stephen Place (Ind)

There will be no contest in the following wards due to the number of candidates being less than, or the same as, the number of available seats:

Cowling: John Alderson (Ind).

Parish councils

Lothersdale: Michael Stephen Binns, Michael John Charles Gover, Helen Rose Marshall, Lyn Janet Slater, Andrew Roger Wheatstone, Malcolm Frederick Willetts.

Sutton: Joseph Bamford (Ind), Barbara Elaine Barwick-Nicholson.

There will be no contest in the following areas:

Glusburn: Mary Askew, Gillian Sara Birks, Michelle Louise Clarke, Paul Milton Pearson, Ian Ridehalgh (Ind), Peter Kenneth Seward (Ind), Andrew Sharp, Allan Thompson, Jennifer Ann Wood.

Biographical details and photographs of the candidates in each contested seat will appear in the Keighley News on April 26.