WITH polling for seats on five of East Lancashire's councils taking place today, many voters may already be pre-judging the result - as yet another victory for the apathy. But it is an attitude that people would be rash to adopt this time round. For so much is at stake.

Not least is the drive by the British National Party to build on the toehold they have in the region. Out to exploit both apathy and disillusionment with the mainstream parties, they are fielding more than 20 candidates in three of the boroughs.

Will they succeed? They might if stay-at-home voters let them. And in Pendle, where the council is hung, and in the Ribble Valley, where no party has overall control, the BNP could end up holding the sway. At Burnley, scene of their British breakthrough last year, they are fielding candidates in all but two wards.

The polls, then, will be a crucial test of how much East Lancashire voters reject or support the far right - or assists them by indifference.

Elsewhere in the region, there are other good reasons why apathy should not prevail. In Hyndburn, where control is held by a slender one-seat majority, a first-ever all-postal election aims to encourage more to participate in what, as a virtual straight fight between Conservatives and Labour, could be telling reflection of the political mood nationally.

And at Rossendale, the elections amount to a crucial opinion poll on the council's worst-in-Britain status and rocketing council tax bills, neither of which ought to be met by apathy.