People responding to a consultation about building new houses can submit responses from multiple email addresses and postcodes.

Rosemarie Mulvey discovered the flaw when she tried to respond to Waltham Forest Council’s survey into the future of its housing strategy.

She was surprised to learn respondents do not have to provide proof of residence in the borough, meaning some could skew consultation results in their favour.

Ms Mulvey, 58 of Waltham Forest, has lived in the borough since 1962 and is a council house tenant.

She claims she told her local councillor Cllr Marion Fitzgerald of the issue last week, but says she is yet to receive a “satisfactory” response from the council.

She said: “I want this survey pulled, it’s flawed and the council know it’s flawed.

“I’m gob-smacked. I have no confidence in this survey’s results as it’s blatantly open to abuse. God help the future of housing in this borough.”

Ms Mulvey claims she was also able to fill in the survey five times using the same email address as recently as this weekend.

She said: “Nothing has been done to correct this flaw. It beggars belief and I’m outraged, the survey’s results cannot be used as they stand.

“I’ve tried going through the councils complaint procedure, but it’s too slow to be able to do anything about this.”

A council spokesperson said: “We want to ensure that anyone who would like to respond to our housing strategy consultation has the ability to do so.

"To allow people using shared computers, such as in our libraries or those living in the same property, to respond we have not blocked multiple responses from devices or email addresses.

“Any attempts to skew the results of a consultation are usually quite obvious to detect and are factored into our analysis and acknowledged in our consultation report.”