SHOCKED council officials on the Fylde are to investigate after a wad of unused ballot papers were discovered - in Preston!

Hundreds of voting slips from the General Election were blowing in the wind on a car-park close to St James Church in Avenham.

The Preston man who discovered them said: "I couldn't believe they'd just been dumped there especially when I saw they were from out of the area."

A Fylde town hall spokesman said he was concerned the papers had been dumped, but they were spares and would have had no effect on the election result. All the ballot papers are strictly accounted for."

He said a few months after the election, spare ballot papers are collected from the town hall by a waste company. "They recently picked these up and one of the bags containing the papers went astray, but we don't know how, other than to say it had fallen off the wagon or had been stolen."

Fylde MP Michael Jack said: "I think it's always a matter of concern when any official paper connected with any election turns up."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.