A FORMER X-Factor contestant hopes to make a difference in the community if he is elected in next month’s Blaenau Gwent council elections.

See full list of Blaenau Gwent candidates

Ivor Beynon, 43, also known as Gwent’s Lord of Steel rocker, is standing as an independent candidate in his home ward of Abertillery.

The father of six, who is a registered childminder, auditioned for the ITV singing competition in 2005 but failed to make it past the first round.

But now the Friends of Abertillery fundraiser and Heads of the Valleys and Blaenavon heritage site tour guide wants votes of a different kind.

He said: “I find that to get anything done you’ve got to volunteer.

That’s the main reason I am standing – to lead by example rather than relying on other people.”

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Blaenau Gwent Labour leader Hedley McCarthy is leading the party’s campaign to win back control of the council after losing it in 2008, and hopes to be reelected in Llanhilleth.

Former council leader Des Hillman, who resigned in October last year amid claims of “skulduggery”

among his own group of independents, is standing again in Blaina.

The British National Party’s only Valleys candidate, Brian Urch, is also vying for a seat in Abertillery, having lost out in the 2011 Assembly elections to Alun Davies, while Beaufort café owner Marco Carini is standing as an independent in the village.

Andrew Page hopes to become the region’s only Conservative councillor in the Badminton ward, while Plaid Cymru’s only candidate, Kenneth Daniel, is contesting the Tredegar Central and West seat.

The Labour and Co-operative Party have put forward two candidates, David White and James Anstee, who are both standing in Beaufort.