ROYAL Mail has apologised to a Brompton on Swale woman who was charged postage to receive a political General Election leaflet.

The Conservative campaign literature should have been delivered Freepost, but Andrea Beswick had to collect the envelope from the sorting office in Richmond, where she was charged £1.21.

The envelope, clearly marked "Election communication" should have been delivered free to her home in Stephenson Road on Tuesday. Instead, she received a card informing her that Royal Mail had held on to an item because postage had not been paid.

"If I had known that it was just an election leaflet, I wouldn't have bothered travelling to Richmond and paying the £1.21," said Ms Beswick.

A Royal Mail spokeswoman admitted a mistake had been made, but said this appeared to be an isolated incident caused by confusion between General Election and county council election correspondence. By law, one item from each political party in a General Election is delivered to households by Freepost, while postage must be paid on local election correspondence sent through the post.

"Owing to confusion, one item that should have been delivered free was wrongly surcharged and we can only apologise for that," she said.

Sixty-thousand Tory leaflets were sent out in the Richmond constituency and this was the only one for which a complaint of this sort had been received, she added.

Caroline Dickinson, agent at the Richmond constituency office, confirmed that each elector was entitled to a free political leaflet from each party represented at the General Election.

She had spoken to Royal Mail about Ms Beswick's case, but had not heard of similar incidents.