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Hang on, I hear you say, we've already had elections this year.

Yes, but there are special circumstances in Norwich.

How come? Well, it's political ... no surprise there then.

The Labour government was keen to push ahead with plans to create a unitary authority in Norwich and okayed them in the dying weeks of its administration.

The Conseratives wanted things to stay as they were. Eric Pickles, incoming Secretary for Local Government and Communities, made it very clear he would pull the plug on the plans and warned councils (Devon was in the same boat) "not to waste any more money" on the changes.

Meanwhile, the local elections in May - this year accompanied by a general election - did not happen in Norwich.

Now the unitary authority is no more it's left a democratic deficit.

But fear ye not. That is about to put right and elections are being held in the city on 9 September.

There's quite a lot of interest in the ballot as this is the first test of public opinion since the formation of the coalition.

In fact though, there's only one Conservative ward. Ssix are Labour, two Lib Dem and four are held by the Green Party.

So it's a complicated picture and not one that might shine a great deal of light on the national landscape.

But Norwich, once again, will find itself and its polls in the spotlight and we political pundits will pick over the bones of how Green support holds up, whether Labour voters return to the fold, and will there be any kind of reaction to the first 100 days of the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition?

They are, of course, fighting against each other locally and we'll be watching to see how that pans out too.

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