LISS Conservatives have sparked a political row this week as parish councillors storm over the "hijacking" of the village plan and a questionnaire sent out to local residents.

Some 150 independent volunteers are involved with Liss Village Plan and Design Partnership Group, a non-party political organisation which has been responsible for the drawing up of the plan. Conservative councillor Gina Logan is the secretary of the organisation.

Many Liss residents have recently received the Conservative newsletter, In Touch, from the East Hampshire Conservative Association, which contains an article on the Liss Village Plan.

The article refers to the questionnaire distributed to each Liss household as "our questionnaire" and suggests that views can be expressed through "your parish councillor, Gina Logan", whose photograph appears alongside. The article says: "We have produced a questionnaire."

The local plan questionnaire was sent out by Liss Village Plan and Design Partnership Group to 2,500 households in June and was due back on July 9.

Labour candidate, Howard Linsley, said: "I think this is insulting to the village. I see this as an election leaflet. I think it's appalling they have hijacked the work on the Liss Village Plan and Design Partnership Group, but even more appalling is the fact that they have refused to apologise for politicising both the parish council and the village plan and design partnership group.

"It was promoted and printed by the Conservative agent for East Hampshire. I felt the council should have asked them to stop delivering the leaflet."

"The article is obviously inaccurate in that it clearly claims that the Conservative party has produced the questionnaire for the Liss Parish Plan and that they will be shaping the future of the parish. This work has been done in reality by the parish council and the Liss Village Plan and Design Partnership Group, both bodies being fiercely independent of party politics. This article has caused much upset among the volunteers who have actually done the work.

"They don't even accept that anybody can have been mislead by the article. "I condemn the politicising of Liss Parish Council by the Conservative Party."

Liss Parish Council wrote to the East Hampshire Conservative Association asking for an apology. The letter also asked for a note to appear in the next issue of the In Touch newsletter.

Gina Logan has yet to make comment on the matter. In a reply to Liss Parish Council, Beverley Carpenter, agent for East Hampshire Conservative Association, said: "The article is an information piece publicising the Liss Parish Plan. It states quite clearly that parish councillor Gina Logan was involved in the development of the plan with other members of the parish council and the village plan and design partnership group."

"While it states that 'You can express your views through your parish councillor Gina Logan', it does not say this is the only way that views can be expressed.

"I very much doubt that residents of the parish of Liss will have inferred that this is a Conservative Party initiative and I also doubt that there will have been any misunderstanding among them in the article."

Margaret Effenberg, chairman of Liss Village Plan and Design Partnership Group, said: "We're a non-party political organisation and don't get into the party politics of anything and neither does the parish council.

"We want what's best for the village. My politics are my own, people want what's best for the village and so do I. We support the inner villages always.

"It has been sent out as if one person and the parish council is doing the plan, but we do all the donkey work, the parish council doesn't have the time, so we do it in partnership with them."

"We are non-political and would like to be seen as that. I have striven to uphold that view."

Mrs Effenberg has received one written complaint and three verbal complaints since the Conservative newsletter was distributed. She said: "Not all the people involved are Conservatives. Everyone has a different point of view this is not the work of one specific group. This was a total misunderstanding."

Nigel Paren, chairman of Liss Parish Council, said: "I think it was a misunderstanding and not a deliberate attempt to hijack the plan. It probably would have been wise if they had cleared it before it was used. Some of the wording was ambiguous.

"A lot of people giving their help would not have done so if they felt in some way there was a political bias. People did express some misgivings.

"It could have been avoided."