The Prestwich and Whitefield Guide is now reporting that the petition submitted on an elected mayor has been accepted and validated and will go ahead later in the year (read full story).  

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 and 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.

Tim