The chair of Port Erin Commissioners says he expected more people to stand in last month’s local authority elections.

Every seat on every board across the island was up for grabs in the July poll, however, two thirds of authorities had too few candidates to hold a vote.

It means certain issues will be presided over by people who did not win the backing of the public.

Godfrey Egee claims it shows a ’lack of enthusiasm’ about helping out your local community.

In Mr Egee’s authority, the future of the historic Cosy Nook cafe building has caused plenty of comment and split opinion.

He thinks those who feel strongly about how the situation should be resolved have missed an opportunity to make a difference.

’I really did expect, because of what’s been going on with the Cosy Nook, to have far more people enamoured to come forward and do their bit for the village,’ Mr Egee told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

He added: ’It’s really quite a poor turnout.

’It seems to be across the island where there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm in democracy and doing their bit for the local community.’

Asked how people should make their views known about where they stand on issues to local politicians, Mr Egee said they could email or write letters in to their local authority.

Using the example of the Cosy Nook issue, he said that if the commissioners’ attempt to get it de-registered fails, then the authority will accept that it must ’go forward and do what we can to the place to get it open’, adding that work could potentially begin over the winter.

Fourteen out of 21 local authorities had uncontested elections at the end of last month.