That’s understandable. At a general election the whole country is voting for its head of government.

In comparison, local elections seem less exciting – a much smaller decision – but it’s local authorities like Swindon Borough Council that are either making or managing decisions and policies that make a real difference to residents’ lives.

READ MORE: All the candidates standing in the Swindon local elections

Seismic shake-ups like Brexit aside, many things that central government decides and does are quite remote – foreign policy, defence policy and long-term plans for the environment.

And those that affect people on their doorstep are often put into place and managed by elected councillors.

If the government says it wants to make money available for economic regeneration or to encourage people not to drive but make short journeys by bike or on foot, it will be the council’s job to come up with schemes which will be funded, to acquire the money and to put them in place.

The council’s statutory duties are also critical to the people who live in Swindon. Families want their elderly and vulnerable adults properly looked after and helped to lives as full and independent a life as possible – that’s a council function.

Children at risk of harm, whether at home or from outside, are the council’s’ responsibility. Sometimes it must assume a parental role and take a child into care – more often council officers work with families to try and keep children safe and with their families.

Either way, those officers work to policies decided upon by the councillors readers will be electing across Swindon today.

While elections are necessarily political the council has many non-political jobs for councillors like planning and licensing. Again, while the government in London has set policies to allow a significant increase in housebuilding, it is up to councillors to decide where they should go, how they might look, and whether the arrangements on the roads nearby are safe.

It is councillors who decide whether pub or off-licences are fit to serve alcohol and whether taxi-drivers are safe to carry passengers.

It is the councillors our readers elect today who will make decisions about how much should be spent on roads, how much you pay in council tax, how the theatre and art gallery and museum should be funded and run, where new schools should be built, how much rent council tenants will be asked for. It is councillors who decide what to do with leisure centres and libraries.

If you want your say on any of these and dozens of other issues, your chance comes today.

Apart from anything else, after the year we’ve all endured, it’s a chance to do something new.

And you can take your dog. Don’t take pictures inside the polling station, but take one of your pet as you wait outside, use the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations, and we might put your pooch in the paper.