UKIP have dismissed claims that their Ribble Valley candidate has tried to mislead voters on an election leaflet.

A number of official complaints have been made to Ribble Valley Borough Council by members of other parties alleging that Shirley Parkinson’s local party had broken election rules.

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Lancashire Police yesterday said it had also received a complaint and was looking into whether UKIP were at fault for publishing a contact address on their campaign leaflets in the constituency that was neither Mrs Parkinson’s home or the campaign headquarters.

However it is understood that under election rules it is not a breach to include a contact address on an official leaflet that has no public affiliation with a particular political party.

Mrs Parkinson, who lives in Walmer Bridge, near Preston, and is also standing for a council seat on South Ribble Borough Council next Thursday, said: “I have a daughter to protect from anybody who wanted to be aggressive against me during the campaign.

“That’s why I did not want to use my home address.

“We also can’t afford to fork out for a campaign office so we have had to make do with a postal address for the course of the campaign.

“The owner of the property has agreed for the address to be used and we have breached no rules.”

The local Conservative Party has also hit out at Mrs Parkinson questioning her links to the constituency and her assertion that she had lived in the area for ‘many years’.

She said: “I have lived in both Farington and Lostock Hall which are both part of the Ribble Valley constituency.”

Ribble Valley borough councillor Terry Hill, who helps to run the campaign to re-elect Nigel Evans, hit out at the leaflet and said: “We have serious concerns about the use of this address in Whalley.

“It just shows again that Mrs Parkinson has very few links to the area and that she is trying to deceive the electorate.”