POLLING stations are set to return to Bolton after the Electoral Commission called for the use of all-postal ballots to be abandoned.

A new report by the elections watchdog found that public confidence in voting by mail had been severely weakened by the problems which marred the June 10 in Bolton and elsewhere.

The commission has now dropped its support for all-postal voting in local polls and says it should "no longer be pursued for use at any UK elections".

Emergency polling stations had to be set up in the borough just hours before the council and euro-ballot earlier this year as around 6,000 voters had not received their voting packs.

The commission said pilots held in four regions -- the North-west, Yorkshire, North-east and the East Midlands -- were marred by abuse claims, a tight timetable and voters struggling to complete ballot papers correctly.

But its report had nothing to say on the war of words that erupted between Bolton Town Hall and the Royal Mail during the election as each side sought to blame the other for missing ballot papers.

Electors will instead have to wait for the publication of a report by Bolton's returning officer Bernard Knight into what went wrong.

Liberal Democrat council leader Cllr Barbara Ronson said: "We will issue the report to council members in the near future and it will be made available to the public shortly after that.

"The council is extremely concerned about what occurred during the elections and the sooner we are able to make our findings known to the public the better."

Tory councillor John Walsh, an outspoken critic of postal voting, said the Government should not have allowed the system to be used in the elections.

He said: "The Government knew the concerns over using postal voting during these elections but carried on regardless -- the result was that people were disenfranchised."

But Labour leader Cllr Cliff Morris defended his party's Government.

He said: "There were problems in Bolton but this was a pilot to find out how well postal voting works."

The Commission is now advocating a new 'foundation model' for voting which would give voters a choice of voting methods, including voting by post and polling stations.