2003 Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council election

The main beneficiaries were the rapidly advancing Community Action Party, and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems, helping them to narrowly retain their third place in vote share behind the second place, and largely unchanged, Conservatives.

The Socialist Alliance made little headway despite their near-full slate, and significantly fell back in their most competitive wards.

Community Action accounted for three, gaining further representation in Bryn and Lightshaw and also making another breakthrough in the formerly uninterrupted Labour territory of Ashton-Golborne.

The Tories strengthened their footing on the council with another gain in Swinley, a ward which had reliably elected Conservatives throughout the eighties, but had progressively been routed in the early nineties.

Overall turnout dropped from last year's partly recovered figure of just over a quarter of the electorate, to 22.7%.