Douglas councillors have supported the idea of holding local and national elections on the same day.

Members also voted to support five-year terms for local authorities, up from the current four.

Councillor Andrew Bentley said he thought it was a ’silly idea’ for local authorities to have five-year terms because he was concerned that they ’could lose talented people’ to general elections for people who wanted to seek elections to Tynwald.

A number of Douglas councillors have gone on to represent constituencies in the House of Keys including three current ministers MHKs Chris Thomas, David Ashford and Bill Malarkey.

However council leader David Christian said the intention was to ’boost turnout in local elections’.

Mr Christian noted that in some local authorities, it had been some time since an election had been held. A by-election in Bride was believed to be the first time in over two decades that residents had been required to vote in their local authority.

He also said that it was up to the candidates to decide which election to stand in.