A COUNCILLOR contesting the local elections has had to give up campaigning on foot after suffering a horror fall.

Coun Bea Foster fractured one ankle and tore the ligaments in another, leaving her in a wheelchair.

She said: “I was coming out of a dementia awareness conference at the James Hargreaves suite at Burnley FC and was walking across to my car, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. There’s a kerb and I just fell off that.”

Coun Foster, who is defending her Rosegrove seat, is now having to use a wheelchair, and will not be able to put any weight on her feet for seven weeks.

She is hoping she will make it to the election count on Friday in her wheelchair, but has had to secure an emergency proxy vote to allow her husband to vote on her behalf.

Fellow councillor Betsy Stringer had to go to Burnley General Hospital to ask doctors to sign the forms as proof of her injury.

Coun Foster said the accident had happened at the worst possible time. She said: “I can’t believe it. It feels like a dream I’m going to wake up from. I keep pinching myself.

“It’s campaigning week and I can’t go knocking on my doors like I planned. I was going to be out morning, afternoon and night canvassing door-to-door.

“Luckily I have a good team of workers and I would like to thank them for doing my door knocking for me.”