THE Royal Mail has admitted there were problems when 4,000 polling cards for Blandford residents disappeared before May's local elections.

But North Dorset District Council heard that the problems were not confined to a Royal Mail error.

Chief executive Liz Goodall told the overview and scrutiny committee that the council had printed up the polling cards, put them in sacks and handed them to Royal Mail. But of the 50,000 cards sent out on April 12, three wards' worth of cards and some other cards, equivalent to around 4,000 polling cards in one sack, appeared to have vanished.

The council was flooded with calls from concerned voters unsure what was happening.

"Although legally a person doesn't have to have a poll card to vote, the receipt of a poll card reminds someone they can vote and where to vote," the chief executive said. "We decided to send letters out. If we tried to print more poll cards that would have taken a very long time. Royal Mail covered the cost."

She said the 3,500 letters sent to areas they knew had been affected were effective, but there was no way of knowing where other missing cards had been destined.

Some accreditation letters for officials had also vanished.

Apologising for the problems, Danny Brown, consultant in government for Royal Mail, admitted: "There were errors made on both sides."

He said none of the polling cards had postage on them and normally they would have just returned the mail to the sender. Instead they franked the 50,000 cards.

Adrian Burton, at Royal Mail Poole, said they franked the cards in batches and noted the 4,000 card discrepancy between their count and the council's figure.

But he said there could have been fewer than 4,000 cards missing.

The men suggested Royal Mail and the council work together in the future, sharing a proof of the mailings, as councillors highlighted that general, district and European elections are on the horizon.

The missing polling cards may still turn up, and if they do, they will be delivered to households.