THOUSANDS of pounds will be spent sending postal voters two envelopes instead of one.

South Lakeland District Council will send its estimated 20,000 postal voters one envelope for the parliamentary election and another for the local elections.

At 35p per envelope that works out as an expenditure of £14,000, described as 'astonishing' by one county councillor.

This contrasts to neighbouring Craven District Council, which told the Gazette that it combines parliamentary and district elections in just one envelope.

A spokesman for SLDC said: “Our primary objective is to ensure that we run an effective, efficient and secure election and to minimise any risk of confusion or error.

“In this election there are a number of reasons why posting all the ballot papers for local and parliamentary elections together was not considered a good idea, the main one being that parts of the South Lakeland district that will be having local district and parish elections in May also fall in the Barrow and Furness parliamentary constituency, which isn’t administered by SLDC for the general election.

“It has been considered, therefore, that the massive logistical task of organising the printing and distribution of the different permutations of the estimated 20,000 postal votes in a single envelope would not be appropriate for this election.’’

But Cllr James Airey, leader of the Conservative group, disputes the amount of work it would take to combine the postal voting forms into one envelope.

"I don't think it would be a great task at all," he said. "They have the electoral register so they could select the Barrow and Furness council wards differently and save money in the rest of the district. In these cash strapped times to be spending £14,000 on postage is astonishing. It might take them longer but they are there to safeguard taxpayers' cash."

Cllr Airey also disagrees that putting all the forms in one envelope would cause confusion among voters.

He said: "Surely it's more simple to get it all in one envelope? I get people ringing me up saying they don't understand getting one set of forms in one envelope and another in a different one. They think the others have been lost or that they're not allowed to vote in all elections. It's much simpler to use one envelope and most councils do it anyway. It doesn't surprise me with SLDC as this is the council that spent £24,000 on advertising in the Times Supplement. They have a great track record of wasting money."

The spokesperson for SLDC responded: "We regularly review our systems for postal votes and the current arrangements have been in place for a number of years, and we have found them to work well and they are familiar to our electorate.

"For clarification, the cost to SLDC of the recent 16 page feature in the Times’ business supplement was £11,830. This not only included the supplement but also the successful Times Business Forum event held at Kendal College. The purpose of this project with the Times was to promote business and inward investment in South Lakeland. The supplement distributed to a readership of 313,000, in a circulation area stretching from Nottingham to the Scottish border and north Wales."