ELECTORS in South Lakeland look set to escape problems dogging the postal voting experiment in the North West, reports Justin Hawkins.

Voters across the region are among 12 million Britons taking part in a trial of postal voting in local and European Parliament elections on June 10.

But this week MPs in the House of Commons raised concerns that problems printing millions of ballot papers could mean many voters will not be able to complete and return their papers in time to be counted. Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised to look into the situation.

Conservative NW MEP David Sumberg said: "This complete shambles is utterly disgraceful. The Government arrogantly and impetuously forced postal voting on the region - against expert advice of the Electoral Commission - and is now reaping the ill wind of that misjudgement. We are faced with the farcical situation of vast swathes of the region not getting their ballot papers on time.

"It is a scandal that the Government has so badly underestimated the logistical difficulties of organising postal voting."

However, Clare Wheatman, electoral services officer at South Lakeland District Council, said no problems had yet been encountered in South Lakeland.

"In our area everything is running to plan," she said.

l Meanwhile, three of the North West's MEPs were in Kendal this week to discuss European issues.

Sir Robert Atkins, Conservative; Brian Simpson, Labour; and Chris Davies, Liberal Democrat; came face-to-face in front of 25 members of the public in a special Euro election debate organised by the European Movement in Kendal on Wednesday night.

All three agreed that the fact that, in the last European parliament elections in 1999, the paltry turn out of only 24 per cent of the electorate and as low as 11 per cent on some areas - reflected the British disengagement with Europe, lack of understanding about its role and the overwhelmingly hostile attitude of the anti-European right-wing national press in Britain.

Sir Robert Atkins said the challenge was to educate people about the truth of the EU and fight the falsehoods peddled about the EU by the right-wing press, right-wing parties such as the BNP and the UK Independence Party.

"Unfortunately, a lot of people get their politics from the likes of Kilroy-Silk and the less savoury writers on the national newspapers. But we cannot ignore those views, it has to be brought out and discussed properly," he said. "We have to confront the positions of the UKIP and the BNP by informing and educating people with common sense, not treating these people as though they were scum, they are often ordinary decent people who are badly mistaken and need correcting."