Vote NO in elected mayor referendum in Bury
The petition submitted to Bury Council calling for a referendum on an elected mayor has been accepted and validated, and the vote will go ahead later in the year
What this means is that people in Bury will vote, later in the year, whether they want to change to a system where we have a Directly Elected Mayor, instead of the current system. If that’s what people vote for, it means an election would be held for an elected mayor of Bury, presumably next year.
The Liberal Democrats in Bury are OPPOSED to us having an elected mayor. Here’s why:
We believe its fundamentally undemocratic. An elected Mayor has all the “executive” powers of the Council for themselves, and once they are elected they are effectively unaccountable for the next four years until the next election! We don’t believe this is right or sensible. Decisions about local areas should be taken by local people, that’s why we’ve always pushed for greater say for local areas like Prestwich or Ramsbottom. How could one person, sat at Bury Town Hall, possible understand and make decisions for all the different towns and communities that make up Bury MBC?
Secondly, we believe it to be a waste of public money. We currently have 51 councillors in Bury and a ceremonial “Mayor”. If we had an elected Mayor that would be on top of the 51 councillors, and we’d still have to have a ceremonial “chair” of the Council. The average salary for an elected mayor in a principal authority in England is £66,000 - in some of those the Mayor has appointed a Deputy Mayor on about £40,000 as well! Personally I’d rather spend all that money on better council services, or a lower Council Tax.
For the sake of Bury, this mad idea should be confined to the dustbin.
Rick
4 Comments
have your say
Of course the LibDems don’t want an elected mayor. You have not one councillor outside Prestwich and yet by holding the balance of power on the council nothing can be done by either of the two main partieswithout your approval. There is no chance of a LibDem ever being elected as mayor, so your power gone
Hi James,
Well, that’s one way of looking at it.
It’s not the right way though.
All three parties in Bury are aginast having an elected Mayor for lots of reasons. The main ones are that it gives a huge amount of power to one person, who can exercise it more or less at will for four years, without giving people a chance to have a say in all that time. So it’s undemocratic. It’s also a colossal expense - the average salary paid to the dozen or so elected Mayors elsewhere in the country is nearly £100,000 per year, PLUS around £50,000 for a deputy. That’s more than all the money allocated for road repairs in Prestwich for a year.
There are other reasons too, which I would be glad to talk to you about, but won’t labour here. Just give me a call.
Lib Dems will continue to oppose the election of a Mayor regardless of the power situation in Bury. As, I’m sure, will the other two parties.
Rick
If having a mayor will stop me being charged by the congestion charge to drive to my own home in Prestwich from my family in Radcliffe crossing one of the zones then I am all for it.
Would the councils ever have a referendum to let the people decide if they wanted the congestion charge, I think not.
That’s just the point Darren - an elected Mayor will make absolutely no difference on congestion charging. Bury COuncil has already voted “no” on the congestion charge issue, and will do so at the meeting of AGMA when the issue is decided Greater Manchester-wide. All that an elected Mayor could do would be exactly the same. Belive me, I am dead against congestion charging - in fact I was the person who proposed that the Council reject it in the first place! But I am also dead against a Mayor because of the loss of democratic accountability and the sky high cost. It will make not one jot of difference on congestion charging. Please don’t be fooled.
In terms of a referendum - the law prevents Councils from having a binding referendum. We could have one that gave guidance to the Council on how to vote (Bolton Council are doing this) but it costs a fortune. And if you won that referendum all that would happen is that Bury Council would vote no, which has already happened! Once again though this has nothing to do with the Mayor. THe Mayoral referendum is not a referendum on congestion charging. Before voting yes in the Mayoral referendum consider the down-sides of having a Mayor, plus the fact that any Mayor’s influence would only be able to affect Bury, and Bury Council has already voted agaisnt the charge!