A TORY parliamentary candidate and her party have been blasted for printing incorrect information on their campaign leaflets.

Leaflets from Maria Caulfield, the Conservative Party candidate for Lewes, claim the Tories only need to swing a 140 majority in the Liberal Democrat stronghold in order to claim victory come May’s General Election.

In fact Norman Baker, who has held the Lewes seat for nearly 20 years, won the last General Election with a majority of more than 7,500.

Ms Caulfield apologised for the blunder on her website and thanked “eagle-eyed” locals for spotting the “technical error”. Conservative field campaigner Mark Hill also told The Argus the figure was “a mistake”.

But the Lewes hopeful is not the only Sussex Tory to have riled residents with false information on their campaign leaflets.

Down the road in Plumpton, a candidate running to become a councillor on Lewes District Council declared on her campaign leaflets that her party had “improved recycling rates” by 7% in the area over the past four years.

Statistics from Lewes District Council show the actual increase is less than 1%.

The candidate, Nancy Bikson, also claims her party “saved the ferry service” in Newhaven.

But resident Peter Baker said: “The ferry service is kept going by a subsidy of over €16 million euros per annum, paid by the Seine Maritime region of France. Not a penny of contribution comes from UK national or local government, so how the Conservatives claim they saved it, I do not understand.”

Ann De Vecchi, Norman Baker’s election agent, said: “I’m afraid this is part of a pattern of misleading contents of Tory literature, all of which seem designed to boost their chances in this constituency.”

Maria Caulfield told The Argus: “It is a shame the Lib Dems are campaigning so negatively during this election.

“I am determined however to keep running a positive campaign that will focus on local issues and outlines what I would continue to do if elected as the local MP and how a Conservative Government would continue the economic recovery of the country.”