CONSERVATIVES on Waverley Council may have to defend their newly won majority in less than two years, at an extra election costing council taxpayers £120,000.
The borough council is to fire off a protest to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, which is proposing the May 2001 election to implement soon-to-be-agreed ward boundary changes.
Town and parish councils will apparently not be required to hold the extra poll.
But in order to get back in sync with the town and parish elections, Waverley Council would have to go the polls yet again in May 2003.
The electorate, the majority of whom ignored this year's local government and European Parliament polls, would find themselves called on for an election at one level or another every year from 2001 to 2007, assuming a general election in 2002.
The proposal is particularly galling for Waverley, as it met tight deadlines for the boundary review, so that changes could be brought in at the elections of May this year.
"The DETR then, towards the end of the review, said it would not be possible to conclude and implement any review changes in time for the May 1999 elections," council officers pointed out to Waverley's policy committee.
Michael Goodridge (Con) said that after the last lot of elections, the electorate must have thought they would be left alone.
And he referred to the cost, not only to the borough council but to all the political parties involved.
David Munro (Con) stressed that as well as mentioning the cost and inconvenience of the extra election, Waverley's protest should mention the harm to the conduct of local government.
"Any shorter than four years would be thoroughly bad. Any administration, of whatever party hue, needs time to sink or swim."
A warning came from council leader Bernard Foulkes, that the Local Government Commission's boundary review, about to be finalised, is almost out of date already.
The government's local government White Paper is proposing that council wards should be two-member, enabling elections every two years involving half the council each time.
And although the review has achieved this in Farnham, some Haslemere and Cranleigh wards remain three-member.
"It seems an extraordinary nonsense that the government and the commission can't get their act together," said Ann Mugford (Con).