Senior Ulster Unionists including party leader Sir Reg Empey MLA and Jim Nicholson MEP have been hitting the streets in Waringstown to canvass votes for their candidate Jo-Anne Dobson. And TUV leader Jim Allister has urged voters to back his party’s candidate in the Lurgan by-election, David Calvert.

Mr Allister said that voters from Lurgan area came out “in force” to support the TUV in the European election and that the impact of those votes “is still being felt today across the political spectrum”.

He added: “Commentators are united in their view that Traditional Unionist Voice has kept the brakes on the pace of concessions to republicans.”

He accused other Unionist parties of opposing the co-option of a TUV member, thus leading to the contest, but allowing a nationalist to be co-opted in Portadown last month.

There will be four names in the hat for the 13 January contest.

The line-up for the poll in the Lurgan Ward will be: David Calvert (TUV), Jo-Anne Dobson (UUP), Liam Mackle (Sinn Fein) and Pat McDade (SDLP).

The poll will, in effect, be a straight fight between Calvert and Dobson, as the Lurgan Ward – which also takes in Waringstown and Donaghcloney – is overwhelmingly Unionist, having returned three UUP, three DUP and one Sinn Fein in the 2005 council elections.

One of the three DUP men — Mark Russell who gained the least votes of the successful trio in 2005 — turned TUV last year and it was he who resigned his seat last month to create the vacancy.

Fellow TUV member David Calvert was nominated by the party for a co-option, but none of the sitting councillors would second his name after Independent Unionist David Jones proposed him.