A SOCIAL worker is quitting his job so he can stand for the council that employs him.

George Burlison, 51, a team manager with Durham County Council's Social Care and Health department, will end his 33-year career today so he can contest the Framwellgate Moor seat for Labour on Thursday, June 8.

Rules forbid a councillor from working for the council he is a member of, so Mr Burlison has decided to leave his job.

The by-election has been caused by the death in March, of 71-year-old Don Ross, the council's deputy leader, who had held the seat, which includes Bearpark, Witton Gilbert and the Pity Me area of Durham City, for 19 years.

Mr Burlison, of Esh Winning, works with children and young people and is also on the management committee of the village's family centre - which was closed by the county council last year.

He said: "As a social worker, I certainly believe in social justice. This is about how I am going to improve the quality of life in these three villages."

He will be up against Liberal Democrat Redvers Crooks, Patricia Wynne for the Conservatives and Independent candidate Ian Rutland.

Liberal Democrats spokesman David Freeman said he was confident the party could add the seat to the other five it has won in the Durham area in recent years.

"Redvers Crooks was our candidate in the last election, last May, and he achieved quite a big swing away from Labour and we are expecting that this time we will do it."

Conservatives spokesman Michael Fishwick said Mrs Wynne, a local Tory activist who fought the seat last year, was hoping the split within the county council Labour group that led to Albert Nugent replacing Ken Manton as leader - as well as the party's slumping popularity nationally - could help her chances.

"We'll be asking voters to give their verdict. If they are dissatisfied with the divisions up there we'll be asking them to vote Tory."