A mystery bid to protect a war memorial at the centre of a campaign to honour forgotten fallen WWII soldiers has stirred up a hornet’s nest among councillors.

An investigation has been launched after English Heritage confirmed it listed Carshalton war memorial as a grade II building of special interest in February.

The move has angered councillors, who see it as delaying a campaign to include the names of 270 men killed fighting in WWII but are not honoured on the stone.

At a council meeting on Monday Councillor Lord Graham Tope said the bid was lodged “without his knowledge”.

English Heritage has refused to identify the applicant and the council submitted a Freedom of Information request into who lodged the bid.

At the meeting Carshalton and Clockhouse committee chairman Councillor John Kennedy described the council’s stance as either a matter of “incompetence” or “total indifference”.

Afterwards he rejected Sutton Council’s claims it informed ward councillors of the application last December when English Heritage advised it was considering a bid.

Coun Kennedy said: “No notification had ever been received by myself.

"Coun Tope himself said he had no idea who asked for it and he is in charge of that whole department.

"The listing of the structure will not prevent the addition of names on the memorial, but the consulation process will slow the matter further, however we are determined to get round any obstacle and we will."

An estimated cost for engraving names on a bronze plaque has been put at £15,000.

At Monday night’s full council meeting Coun Kennedy asked the council to contribute £7,500, but this was rejected by a majority of Liberal Democrat councillors.

At one point Councillor Jane McCoy provoked angry words from Conservative opposition councillors and members of the public who cried “shame on you” and “disgrace” when she likened their request for funds to her son asking for additional pocket money to buy a bag of sweets.

Councillor John Drage later sought to clarify her comments and said there was “no question of respect for the war dead”, but said it was up to local committees how they spent their money.

The campaign for the memorial began after William Quattrucci, 82, of Clockhouse, said the name of his brother Sidney, a rifleman of Second Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, who was killed in El Alamein on November 3, 1942, was not included on the memorial.