THREE fed-up residents in Kingswinford and Stourbridge who have been fighting to improve their communities are taking their campaigns to the ballot box.

Campaigners Wendy Baggott, Janet Hendry and Steve Sharples have for more than 12 months been fighting for three very separate causes close to their hearts – and now they are taking their battles to the local election on Thursday May 6.

Wendy Baggott, who is standing for the Liberal Democrats in Wordsley, has been campaigning to have a monster phone mast in Kingswinford taken down.

Janet Hendry, who is also standing for the Lib Dems in Kingswinford South, has garnered massive support to help preserve Broadfield House.

And Steve Sharples, a Labour candidate for Amblecote, is chairman of the Caparo Action Group, which has been fighting for a better quality of life for residents living near the pollution-producing Caparo Aluminium Technologies in Wollaston.

Although not all united in their political parties, all three say say they have had enough of Dudley’s Tory-controlled council, which they say has let them and their communities down.

So the aspiring politicians are now all set on beating their Conservative rivals, who currently hold the seats in their wards, in the borough’s forthcoming race to the polls.

Mrs Baggott, together with Kingswinford residents, formed the High Acres Base Station Mast Action Group to campaign against a disused water tower in Bartic Avenue covered with mobile phone antennae and dishes – which they fear may be creating a cancer hotspot in the area.

To date, she has enlisted help and support from high-profile names including Brummie comic Jasper Carrott, top US scientist Dr George Carlo and national pressure group Mast Sanity to help highlight the campaign to get rid of the “eyesore” which in 2008 produced levels of radiation higher than any other English site surveyed that year.

Mrs Baggott told the News: “It’s the campaign that’s pushed me down this route. I do the work our local councillors should be doing and I’ve been doing it for the last three years.

“The only people locally who have actually helped us are the Liberal Democrats.”

Janet Hendry, also from Kingswinford, similarly has gathered support from the world’s top glass collectors, including Antiques Roadshow stalwarts Eric Knowles and Andy McConnell, to ensure Dudley Council notes the importance of the borough’s glass collection, which is housed at closure-threatened Broadfield House.

A spokesman for the locally formed Save Our Glass Heritage group, she has also been instrumental in helping to set up a new national group called the British Glass Foundation.

She said: “The amount of support for the museum and local issues is amazing. People in Kingswinford are saying they haven’t felt listened to and they are fully behind me as I believe people should be heard by their politician.”

Steve Sharples, from Platts Crescent, Amblecote, has been campaigning for the last few years to try to resolve the pollution problems faced by residents living near the Caparo factory in Wollaston Road.

Chairman of the Caparo Action Group (CAG), he has been working with the council and Caparo bosses to try to cut the noise, foul stench and sand emitted from the canalside site.

But with the issues continuing to blight nearby residents, Mr Sharples says he has had enough and if the present ward councillors cannot resolve the matter, then he’ll see if he can do better if he’s elected on May 6.

He said: “I want to try to get the community to work as a single unit on this issue. The noise and smell coming from Caparo is dreadful but the council is scared to death to do anything about it in case it goes to court and costs a tremendous amount of money."

Mr Sharples is up against Conservative stalwart Liz Walker, Lib Dem Vera Johnson, UKIP’s Pete Lee and the Green’s Bill McComish for the Amblecote seat.

Mrs Baggott is taking on Tory John Jones, Labour’s Margaret Bowkey, UKIP’s Daniel Cronin and the Green Party’s Jamie Dainton in Wordsley.

Mrs Hendry will be fighting Conservative Patrick Harley, Labour’s Stephen Haycock, UKIP’s Barbara Deeley, Elizabeth Jednorag of the Green Party and BNP candidate Simon Foxall in the battle for the Kingswinford South seat.