Sedgefield is considering holding a full postal vote for borough and parish council elections next year.

The borough council is looking at ways of increasing the turnout in local elections, which has been extremely low in recent years.

Postal voting has proved successful in other areas, notably Gateshead, and in the recent Sedgefield mayoral referendum.

A third of the electorate used their postal ballot in the referendum to decide if they wanted an elected mayor, which was significantly higher than at the previous borough council elections.

Council chief executive Norman Vaulks will present a report to the authority's cabinet on Thursday, seeking to make an application for the borough to run an electoral pilot scheme in May next year.

The report says: "Some councils which had elections in 2002 had schemes approved which allowed all-postal voting, voting by Internet, telephone, electronic polling stations, text messaging and early voting.

"The biggest success at these elections was the introduction of postal voting, which boosted turnout by an average of 28 per cent and in one authority doubled the previous turnout to 61 per cent."

A recent survey of the Sedgefield Citizen's Panel asked which voting option might encourage them to vote in local elections more often. Postal voting was favoured by 50.4 per cent of respondents.

A spokesman for Sedgefield Borough Council said: "The Government has asked local authorities to find new ways of voting at the borough and parish elections in May 2003.

"If it is agreed, we are hoping to arrange for an all- postal vote next year.

"It is something we operated for the mayoral referendum and the number of people voting did increase."

The postal vote option is expected to meet with opposition from some members, but if approved, the council could follow the model used in Gateshead.

The council there eliminated the need for a declaration of identity, and two return envelopes, by incorporating a watermark to minimise the potential for fraud.

If adopted, it is estimated it would cost an extra £25,000 for the council to run a pilot scheme if all borough and parish wards are contested