THE row over faulty polling cards rumbled on, with councillors demanding that officials attend a meeting to explain the fiasco which cost taxpayers thousands.

As reported in The Gazette last year, errors on poll cards sent to every elector in Basingstoke and Deane and the re-issue of the correct information cost taxpayers £30,000.

It had been hoped the errors could be debated at a scrutiny meeting on January 17, but as the new Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council returning officer did not attend the committee, the debate had to be deferred to March.

Leader of the Basingstoke Labour group , Cllr Paul Harvey, said: “I would like to see the returning officer before us. I think it’s a courtesy of this item and I do find it contemptuous and disturbing that it has been handled in this way.”

Two separate incidents involving the printing of polling cards happened last year.

The first came when a number of postal ballot papers for Brookvale and Kings Furlong ward had candidates of the Oakley and North Waltham ward printed on them.

The second was on EU referendum polling cards, which displayed an incorrect deadline date for postal votes.

Both errors led to the polling cards being re-issued. Cllr Michael Westbrook (Brookvale and Kings Furlong) criticised the council for sounding “congratulatory” in a report that found the printers were at fault.

He said: “A resident spotted the error but it was my residents that were inconvenienced and 76 postal voters who didn’t vote as a result.

"One resident even thought the reissue was a hoax and just threw it away.”

In a report to the committee, the figure for money spent rectifying the problem was written on pink paper – a sign that it cannot be made public. 

Cllr Paul Miller (Chineham) questioned figures published in The Gazette.

He said: “I would ask some of the councillors around this table: Do yo u believe everything you read in The Gazette?

“That is unsubstantiated and what is put before us is substantiated and if a figure comes out in The Gazette someone released it from this council.

“I only take figures in these pink papers as trustworthy. ”

However, many councillors agreed that the figure should be published as taxpayers have a right to know.