ANTY leader Gordon Youman said he would like to see more local people stand for Council, but stopped short of putting his own hand up.

“As long as it’s not the Liberal Party,” Mr Youman said.

“Everything you get that’s produced or coming out publicly is either from Aileen MacDonald, David Mills or our member for Guyra Scot MacDonald.”

Opposed to the merger of former Armidale Dumaresq and Guyra Shire Councils, Mr Youman blames Mr MacDonald for failing to give Guyra a voice.

But, it seems nobody from the ANTY group is willing to either.

“You’ve got to appreciate we’ve also got our own businesses to run and it’s going to be a very thankless task to run on this Council,” Mr Youman said.

“Imagine going for any organisational meeting where you’re the only person, if you get in, trying to push your agenda through and it’s not going to go anywhere – it’s going to be a challenge.

“It’s just about as bad as having nobody and that’s why I admire Simon [Murray] for putting his hand up.”

The ANTY group has called on Guyra residents to stand for Council at anti-amalgamation meetings.

At one point, Rob Lenehan considered putting his hat in the ring, but has since decided against it.

Group leaders include Beth White, Rob Lenehan, Gordon Youman and Robert Gordon.

Mr Youman said that at the moment the group is relying on Simon Murray as representation.

But, Mr Murray is neither a core member of the ANTY group, or a Guyra resident.

“At this stage there’s no one,” Mr Youman said.

“You’ve got to realise this is not insignificant, the amount of time we’ve put into this [the anti-merger rallies],” he added.

“We’ve had to put our own resources behind here to try to defend our voices and democracy.

“It’s a terrible state of affairs.”