There will have been knocks on the door, leaflets through the letterbox and campaigning selfies filling Facebook feeds.

In the national media, the phrase ‘the country will go to the polls’ has echoed in news bulletins and articles in the build-up to this year’s local elections on Thursday (May 2).

But it isn't strictly true. In some parts of Greater Manchester, it is likely only one in five voters will be putting their cross in a box this week, if that.

We asked people in those wards with the worst average turnout, over a three-year period, in eight of Greater Manchester's boroughs, why they don't bother.

And from Wythenshawe in Manchester, to Ashton in Tameside or Langley in Middleton - common themes emerged, quickly.

A deterioration in streets and services, a rise in crime. These are the local government issues that come up again and again, the problems people directly associate with town halls and ever-rising council tax bills.

Underneath that, though, lies deeper apathy, anger, or both, aimed not just at the local council, but at Westminster and the political class as a whole. Phrases such as ‘I don’t trust any of them’, ‘there’s no point’ or 'they're in it for themselves' are replicated from street to street, borough to borough.

On a very great many doorsteps, that has now been fuelled by Brexit fury, too - voters who may or may not have bothered before the 2016 referendum, but sure as hell aren’t bothering now, because they feel they weren’t listened to three years ago and see no reason to try again.

“IF WE ARE NOT OUT OF EU BY 29/3/19, NO LONGER A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY, SO WHY VOTE?” read the back of one postal vote letter a few weeks ago in the Douglas ward of Worsley Hall in Wigan , where a shade under 80pc of people stayed at home in last year’s local polls.

“I won’t vote in any elections - any - until we’ve come out of the EU,” Rita McCardle, the note’s author, explains. “I wanted to come out before they even had the referendum.”

Rita and neighbours on Sherwood Grove were planning to put up Union flags on March 29, Britain’s original intended exit day, when we spoke to them. A ‘Democracy is Dead’ placard was being prepared.

Although most won’t adopt quite such forthright protests, the Brexit undercurrent is strong across the board.

A great many people we speak to - all in predominantly Labour areas - say they took part in the EU referendum, but won’t be voting ever again.

“I have voted in the past, but I don't think I will this time,” says Charlene Rathbone, resident in the same ward as Rita.

The 35-year-old voted in the referendum but now asks: ‘What’s the point?’

“I know there's a lot of stress for politicians and there's a lot of pressure on them, but if they don't do what they said they would, people lose interest,” she adds.

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On the Langley estate in Middleton, where just 22pc of people voted last year, Jacqueline Bibby agrees.

“I’m not going to vote ever again, and I think the big majority of people are going to say exactly the same thing,” says the 76-year-old great-grandmother, of Castlerigg Drive.

“Where’s the point when they are backstabbing one another? The people voted to get out and that’s the way it should be – deal or no deal!”

On Stockport ’s Brinnington estate, Brexiter Keith Jones, of Hereford Road, won’t vote again either, branding the exercise ‘pointless’.

“I feel betrayed, David Cameron stood there and said we were leaving - and we are not leaving, simple as that,” says the 43-year-old electrician.

He draws no distinction between the national politicians who continue to row over the EU and those vying for election to their local council.

“It’s the same thing, it’s just an election. I won’t bother anymore," he says.

Local election turnouts had been dropping long before Brexit, of course, and many voters had tuned out years ago, if they had ever tuned in.

A wider cynicism prevails in all these communities, one that often mixes the national, European and the local. Those who start off talking about Brexit often move on to remark on a deterioration in services, or a sense that in areas where Labour have a stranglehold there’s very little point voting anyway.

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In the St Michael’s ward of Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside , where just 24pc of people voted in last year’s locals, Vinny Guarnieri, 67, has lived on Bowman Crescent for 14 years. He has opted not to vote in recent elections.

“They all promise stuff but none of them seem to deliver," he says.

“There’s crime in this area, there’s drugs.

“You complain to the councillors but none of them seem to do anything.

“Who do you vote for that’s going to do anything for the people?"

Debbie has lived in Ashton for 24 years, but says she wouldn't recognise her ward councillors if they passed her on the street.

“I voted last year. But I’m not going to again because whoever gets in there, they’re all the same," the 48-year-old adds.

“One councillor did something for us, they got a street lamp put in. But that was 10 years ago.”

In Gorse Hill in Trafford , one voter tells us 'there's no political battle to win in this part of town’, while in Brinnington - again a Labour stronghold in a borough that has changed hands in recent years - Tory supporter Emma Betts agrees opposition parties simply don’t bother in her area.

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“It would be good to have everybody [canvasssing], rather than [other parties] just thinking ‘oh right, it’s a Labour area’,” she says.

On the estate opposite Wythenshawe town centre in south Manchester, the only sign an election is coming up is one Green Party placard in a window. People immediately mention Brexit, but scratch the surface and they will also talk your ear off about a lack of services, potholes, crime.

Jason Kenyon, 48, who works at Wythenshawe FM radio, talks with passion about his community, particularly the isolation felt by the elderly.

And yet he probably won’t be voting.

“It doesn’t make a difference,” he says, pointing to Brexit again.

A man who wishes not to be named tells us he has thrown every leaflet in the bin. But it doesn’t mean he has no interest in his area.

Pointing to two police officers in the distance he says: “See those two? They’re the first I’ve seen in three months.”

He lists his various local grievances, from people openly smoking joints in the street (‘I thought that was supposed to be illegal?’) - to gangs on bikes who he says roam the roads ‘every night’.

And he's left unimpressed by what he sees as the broken promises of the past. He remembers Labour’s pledges last year to fix the area’s potholes.

"Have you seen the roads here?” he demands.

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While Labour in all these areas will doubtless point to funding cuts, or insist they have been filling in potholes or dealing with other community bugbears, most people we speak to will pay little attention.

In Salford’s Little Hulton , where just 19pc of people voted last year, many simply shake their heads when we mention the local elections.

The most vocal person we speak to is also one of the few with something direct to say about the council.

Monica Petrie, 70, is undecided about what to do. She normally votes, but is disappointed with the political landscape in general.

“They’ve promised so much in the past,” she says, but argues local communities - especially youngsters - have been let down.

“Do you say ‘this person will fight our corner’ or do you think ‘they’re there for the nice pay packet and we’re not getting much for it’?” she says, mulling it over.

She's ‘constantly on the phone’ to the council about fly-tipping and rubbish, but believes not enough is being done.

Politics, be it Brexit or the housing crisis, is in ‘disarray’, she says, sadly.

Yet there are also those - often young parents - who say that while they won’t be voting, or haven’t previously, they would like to. They just feel they don’t know enough.

In the St James ward of Oldham , where just 18.5pc of people voted last year, Samantha Coleman explains she doesn’t have any antipathy towards voting, but has so far never done so.

“Nothing puts me off, I just don’t really follow it so I don’t understand it,” the 25-year-old says.

“I think my mum’s the same, it’s never been in my family really - I have never been really brought up to understand it.

“I know it’s a massive thing, but in day-to-day life I don’t come across people talking about it."

Like Samantha, Shannon Spencer says voting was never a feature of her life growing up.

She’s lived on Peveril Road for five years and is yet to vote.

“I think it’s pointless voting until I do understand what I am voting for," the 25-year-old adds.

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“My mum and dad never really voted or anything, it’s kind of stemmed from that, I have not really had the knowledge.

“My friends, the last thing they are interested in is voting, but I do know it’s important.”

Shannon adds that as she is getting older - and as a mum - she is becoming more aware of how vital being politically engaged is.

“But I wouldn’t vote just for the sake of voting," she says.

"I would want to know who I was voting for and if it didn’t make a difference to my life, I wouldn’t vote.”

In Stockport’s Brinnington, mum-of-four Michelle Butler, from Cornwall Crescent, says she ‘probably’ won’t vote - although she feels she should.

But unlike some of her neighbours, the 38-year-old says she would be open to being persuaded by the right candidate.

“If you get on a level with them, and you talk to them, it’s easier. It’s not something I would just go and look up and read what they are going to do or proposing to do. I don’t even know who runs anymore," she says.

Roger and Kerry Poole, from Nottingham Avenue, feel similarly.

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Parents to three children, all under 15, they also feel they do not know enough to make a decision at the ballot box.

“I personally don’t feel like I’ve had enough information,” says Kerry.

“I can’t really answer why I don’t take a political interest. It’s not good. As parents we should have more of an interest. "

For the minority of those we speak to in the streets where voting has almost died out, there is still a glimmer of hope for politicians.

Many of those who do say they will vote this time round have the same concerns about local, national or international politics as those who don’t,but unlike most of their fellow residents, they feel exercising their democratic right is essential.

In Trafford’s Gorse Hill, mum-of-two Fiona McKenna is firm. All her family vote, she says.

“It’s so important,” says the mum-of-two.

“How can you complain about the state of local services if you don’t vote?

“It’s how society works and how communities function - but I realise not everyone thinks the same way."

In Worsley Hall, Wigan, pensioner Les Cunliffe and his wife Enid have missed just one election in decades.

Someone has to be in charge, says Les, 76, a Wigan Warriors season-ticket holder.

“If you don’t have a referee on the pitch, you don’t have a game. That’s the way I see it,” he says, adding that he clearly remembers having the importance of elections impressed upon him in the 1960s.

“We weren’t told how or which way to vote, just that we would be doing it, that it was important."

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Back in Little Hulton, an area with near-enough the worst turnout in the whole of Greater Manchester, Les’s views are echoed by a voter almost half a century his junior.

Ex-serviceman Josh Challenor, 28, is the very first person we speak to at the start of the day.

“You have to use your voice,” he insists.

Those who choose to stay at home this week may see it as a silent protest, but he thinks it doesn’t get them anywhere in the long run.

Why not?

"Because you can't change anything if no-one can hear you."