Plymouth votes 'no' to directly-elected mayor

PLYMOUTH has come out against the introduction of a directly-elected city mayor after 52 per cent of people voted 'no' in a referendum on Thursday.

- ALISON STEPHENSON AND WILLIAM TELFORD

The city electorate chose to keep the current leader and cabinet system in a ballot which saw just over 19 per cent of the population turn out to vote.

Deflated lead campaigner for change, Angus Forbes, of the Mayor for Plymouth team, said: "Democracy has been trampled on."

The Plymouth Knows Better group, which fought to keep the status quo, said the public had seen through this "failed, costly experiment".

The result was announced at around 1.40am on Friday morning, around three hours after counting began at Plymouth's Life Centre.

Labour leader of the council Tudor Evans was not in attendance.

Some 38,015 people from the city chose to cast their vote from the 198,932 who were eligible.

There were 19,840 votes cast for retaining the existing leader and cabinet model and 18,044 votes in favour of adopting a directly-elected mayor structure.

Plymouth Knows Better, which included prominent members of Plymouth City Council's Labour party, said: "Plymouth really does know better. People saw straight through this failed, costly experiment and they made that known at the ballot box.

"This referendum was always a waste of time and public money. Voter turnout was one of the lowest Plymouth has ever seen - not because people didn't care, but because they knew it was pointless."

The campaign group said the government's plan to scrap city mayors under new legislation had been known about for months, but Mr Forbes had pushed ahead anyway "wasting £410,000 that could have gone to services working people actually rely on".

"Plymouth has sent a clear message. We call on Mr Forbes to take responsibility for this folly, and foot the bill for this vanity project so Plymouth gets its money back."