I would love to see a few familiar faces on the Council and i will give as much advice as you want. I have quite a bit of inside info already on who might be standing in which ward and where there could be a strong chance to contest.

As for setting rumours off and getting the Councillors worried, well that is already a hobby of mine now.

On the ground issue, as with everything, there is more to it than meets the eye, however, the potential sale is not dead in the water at this time. I will say more about it later.

Does anyone know the process for nominations?

Off the top of my head;

You must either live or have a business in the town.
You need a proposer, a seconder and 18 other signatures (nominations)
In the Mayoral election, you need a £500 deposit (repayable if you get 5% of the vote), but I have a feeling there is no deposit needed in Council elections.

That's it basically

Do the 18 people need to live in the ward?

No, the town

Ok then, it costs nada, only 18 people have to nominate. Sounds easy to me.

Closing dates for nominations? I seem to remember that the reason we didn't go ahead last time was that we missed the boat.

What about forming a political party? Is that a central goverment thing?