A consultation on Wokingham Borough Council moving to a four year election cycle has been hit by an accusation that it contains an 'inaccuracy'.

Last week, borough councillors voted on beginning the consultation on switching from an annual election cycle to four year all out elections.

Supporting the move, councillor John Halsall, the leader of Wokingham Borough Council, argued the change could save £1 million a year due to the ‘hidden costs of disruption’ associated with having elections each year.

However, opposition councillors criticised the wording of the consultation, claiming it is biased and contains 'misleading' information.

READ MORE: Wokingham Borough Council could go to four year all out elections to save money

Councillor Stephen Conway (Liberal Democrats, Twyford) introduced a motion that would have removed an 'unintended error' in the draft consultation document, which states that a stated benefit of having all out elections would be that they are 'fairer and more equitable' as voters in three member wards get to vote three times every four years, whereas voters in wards which have only one councillor only get to vote once in that period.

The stated benefit was rubbished by the opposition, who argued that this 'inequity' will not exist.

If the council were to keep its annual election cycle (with a 'fallow' year every four years) the ward boundaries of the borough would have to be redrawn with every ward having three elected councillors.

The motion's seconder, councillor Rachel Burgess (Labour, Norreys) explained: "There is a reference to voters currently having a different number of opportunities to vote.

"This needs to be removed from the consultation responses because it is completely irrelevant.

"There's no scenario going forward where there will be this inequity in the number of chances to vote.

"Either we will be going to all out elections, where we will all vote every four years, or we'll elect in thirds, and if that is the case, we will move to three member wards throughout."

She called a suggestion that the 'voting inequity' would be maintained as "misleading."

Councillor Clive Jones, the leader of the opposition (Liberal Democrats, Hawkedon) argued keeping the annual election cycle gives voters a chance to regularly give their view on the performance of the council, and that four yearly elections could help the Conservatives stay in power - as voters would have to wait longer to vote incumbents out of office.

However, cllr Halsall (Conservative, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe) pointed out that the Liberal Democrats have been able to succeed in all out elections as well, namely in Bath & North East Somerset.

He added that the consultation had been written by an impartial monitoring officer.

Cllr Conway's motion to change the wording of the consultation was shot down in a vote, with 25 Conservatives voting for it and all 20 opposition councillors voting for it.

Following that, councillors voted 28 to 18 to begin a consultation into having all-out elections.

People in the borough will have the opportunity to give their views about the change once the consultation begins.

Any change to the election system would require a two-thirds majority at a full council meeting to be implemented.