A PUDSEY postcode was mistakenly put on invitations to a key meeting near York to consider the Tory candidate for the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner role.

Conservative Party members have expressed concern over the blunder, saying it could lead to members being 25 miles away at the time of a crucial vote.

While long-serving activists said any North Yorkshire or York resident who has been a member of the party for more than three months was entitled to vote at the meeting, they said the invitation error and a failure to contact all members meant far fewer would attend.

It is understood even a Tory council leader was initially omitted from the invitations.

The meeting, at Riley Smith Hall, in Tadcaster, will decide whether to reselect Julia Mulligan to run for a third term as commissioner, which she has been since 2012.

But instead of stating the hall’s postcode of LS24 9AB, the invitations directed people to LS28 9AB - a residential road in Pudsey.

One party member said: “There is a lot of interest among members in this meeting so it was disappointing that people, many of them elderly, were being expected to travel significant distances across England’s largest county to the far from central point of Tadcaster for a meeting at 7.30pm on a Thursday. It didn’t give the impression those organising the meeting wanted a large turnout and neither did the failure to give the correct postcode.”

A Thirsk and Malton constituency resident said she was concerned members reliant on satnav systems could find themselves “merrily driving round Pudsey at the time the crucial vote is being taken”.

“This whole thing has been an absolute farce. A number of local members of the Conservative Party have never even received invitations.”

While some party members have been alerted to the error, the Conservative Party has not responded to a request for a comment.

At the 2016 election, 135,642 voters or 22.47 per cent of the electorate turned out and Mrs Mulligan took 40.1 per cent of first preference votes – falling short of the requisite 50 per cent.

She secured re-election on second preference votes, ultimately receiving 65,018 votes.