WESTMORLAND and Furness Council has apologised to furious residents after a town was left off a map sent to homes.

The authority, which will come into effect next month, sent residents a booklet featuring a map of the major towns in the council area.

But it failed to include the town of Dalton, which has a population of around 8,000.

The council has now apologised following complaints and has promised the town would be included on future material.

A new brochure sent with council tax bills does now include the ancient capital of Furness.

In a public apology, a spokesman for the authority "We’ve been contacted by a couple of residents who have received their copies of our ‘Welcome to your new council’ booklet, to point out that one of the largest towns in the new council area didn’t feature on the map on page 7.

"Thank you for raising this and our apologies to Dalton-in-Furness residents for the unintentional omission.

"We’ve now updated the artwork to make sure Dalton will appear on our maps in the future."

Dave Taylor, a Westmorland and Furness councillor for Dalton South, said: "Residents are not happy because they keep getting left out of things.

"When it comes to funding it's little things like that. If we're not on the map we're forgotten."

Cllr Taylor said he was pleased by the apology.

"A public apology is good enough and very acceptable and the community are happy," he said.

"Hat off to them for doing what they did and apologising.

"It's good to be back on the map.

"I wasn't expecting it but they did it and that gives us more faith in what we're trying to do."

Writing on social media, Dalton north councillor Ben Shirley said the gaff was 'not a good start' for Westmorland and Furness Council.

The new council will come into existence on April 1. 

In the biggest change to Cumbria’s council structures since 1974, two new ‘unitary’ councils are being formed, to replace the existing set-up of six district councils and Cumbria County Council.

Westmorland and Furness Council will officially take over responsibility for all services across the Barrow, Eden and South Lakeland areas from then and the existing Barrow Borough, Eden District and South Lakeland District councils, along with Cumbria County Council, will be dissolved.