AN anti-war party has lodged an official complaint after thousands of its leaflets failed to reach North-East voters before the arrival of postal ballots for next month's Euro elections.

Peter Smith, a sub-agent for the Respect Party on Teesside said Royal Mail had failed to deliver its election leaflet in several areas within the seven day period allotted by the Government.

"Evidence suggests a significant amount of people receiving postal ballots vote very quickly and if they have voted before they have seen our leaflet, it is very serious," said Mr Smith.

He said the main areas affected were Stockton, Redcar and South Bank.

Mr Smith said he met management at Royal Mail's Stockton distribution office, who had agreed to deliver the outstanding leaflets by today.

He said the Respect Party had also taken the matter up with the Government's Department for Constitutional Affairs.

"We have invested enormous time, effort and money to distribute our election leaflets," he said. "All we wanted was our leaflet on people's doorstep on time."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We will investigate any complaint we receive about delivery."

Meanwhile, Tory Euro-MP Martin Callanan is calling for an inquiry by the Electoral Commission following news that some ballot papers in Tyne and Wear have yet to be printed.

"Making these elections all postal was a totally unnecessary experiment pushed through by the Government despite warnings from us about possible problems," he said.

"Surely it would have been more sensible to give people the option to vote in the traditional way as well as the possibility of voting by post?"