Last updated at 13:49, Wednesday, 07 July 2010

Could an elected mayor bring the mojo back to Carlisle? The city is licking its wounds after a torrid start to 2010.

Stewart Young

First the University of Cumbria’s financial troubles led it to shelve plans for a new campus and theatre in Viaduct Estate.

Then Carlisle’s bid to become UK City of Culture fell at the first hurdle.

Latterly, Carlisle Renaissance has gone, the regeneration initiative launched after the 2005 floods that promised so much but, its critics say, delivered so little.

Could an elected mayor – someone with the kudos and clout of London mayor Boris Johnson or his predecessor Ken Livingstone – provide a fresh start?

Elected mayors are very different beasts from the mayors we have now.

Mary Styth, the Labour councillor who became mayor this May, fulfils ceremonial duties, raises money for charity and greets visiting dignitaries.

Her only political role is to chair council meetings.

In contrast, an elected mayor would have sweeping powers.

Whoever it was would replace the council leader, Conservative Mike Mitchelson, rather than Mrs Styth.

John Stevenson, the city’s new Conservative MP, believes it is just what Carlisle needs.

He argues that a directly-elected mayor has a democratic mandate that council leaders, who are elected only by fellow councillors, simply do not have.

Mr Stevenson said: “I’ve been a long-standing supporter of elected mayors.

“They make local government more open, more transparent and more accountable.

“Somebody gets a mandate for four years to lead the city. It gives clear and visible leadership.”

The issue has reared its head thanks to the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which requires the city council to consult voters.

At present, the authority is run by Mr Mitchelson and a ruling executive.

He was elected by all 52 councillors, then chose the other five executive members and decided what responsibilities they should have.

The council can remove him at any time by passing a vote of no confidence.

And councillors can approve or overturn policy and budget proposals from the executive by a majority vote.

An elected mayor would be chosen by voters across Carlisle to serve for four years.

The mayor would appoint an executive in the same way as a leader does but, unlike the leader, a mayor cannot be removed by councillors.

Budget or policy proposals could still be blocked by councillors but only with a two-thirds majority.

Mr Mitchelson and his executive want the system to stay as it is.

The Act will require one small change – in future, leaders will be elected to serve for four years rather than one – but he believes the leader-and-executive system is still better for Carlisle.

Mr Mitchelson said: “There are merits in the elected-mayor model but I don’t think it is in the best interests of the city, given the model of local government we have.

“The idea of an elected mayor is that you have one person accountable for everything. That won’t work here because we have city and county councils.”

Councillors decide next Tuesday what form the consultation with voters will take.

A report from Mark Lambert, the assistant director – governance, suggests it will be limited.

The report says: “It is recommended... that the council should seek the views of a limited number of partner authorities and organisations, advertise on its website and place an advertisement in a local newspaper.”

Any feedback will be reported to councillors by the end of this year.

A resolution going to Tuesday’s meeting calls on councillors to declare that they are “minded to continue” with the leader-and-executive system.

But if an overwhelming response from the public persuaded them to go for an elected mayor instead, there would have to be a referendum before the system changed.

And if five per cent of the electorate – just over 4,000 voters – were to sign a petition demanding a referendum, the council would have to hold one anyway.

Mr Stevenson believes the council should bite the bullet and put the issue to the public.

He said: “The simplest and most effective route would be to have a referendum in May next year along with the local council elections. We need to get a decisive view from the people of Carlisle.”

Ironically, while Conservative Mr Stevenson is championing a policy brought in by the last Labour government, there is not much enthusiasm among Labour politicians.

Reg Watson, leader of the opposition Labour group on the city council, said: “I believe that power and decision making should be in the hands of the many, not the few.

“We see what happens in London, which is an affront to democracy. The mayor sticks up two fingers to the Greater London Assembly all the time.”

Stewart Young, the Labour deputy leader of Cumbria County Council, agrees with Mr Mitchelson that elected mayors only really work where one council provides all local-government services.

That is not the case in Cumbria. An elected mayor of Carlisle, for example, would have no control over county-council functions such as schools, roads and social services.

Mr Young said: “Having an elected mayor for a district council such as Carlisle is nonsensical.

“People would assume that an elected mayor could influence everything that happens in the city. They could not. If every local authority in Cumbria went down this route we would have seven elected mayors.”

A dozen councils in England have elected mayors. They are soon to be joined by the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which voted ‘yes’ to the idea in May.

Not all these mayors are established politicians backed by a mainstream party.

In Hartlepool, for example, H’Angus the monkey, the mascot of Hartlepool United, was elected in 2002.

H’Angus, real name Stuart Drummond, stood on a campaign of free bananas for schools. He failed to fulfil that pledge but he is now taken seriously as a politician and has been re-elected twice since.

Down the coast in Middlesbrough, former police Detective Superintendent Ray Mallon, once dubbed ‘Robocop’ won as an Independent in 2002.

In his first five years as mayor, recorded crime fell by 20 percent.

He also replaced the mayoral limousine, a six-litre Jaguar, preferring to use electric cars or those with very low CO2 emissions. He was re-elected in 2007.

In Doncaster, English Democrat Peter Davies has waged war on political correctness.

He immediately cut his annual salary from £73,000 to £30,000 and pledged to end town twinning to save money.

He refused to resign after councillors passed a vote of no confidence in February. They also slammed his budget and proposal to cut council tax as “irresponsible”.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles stepped in last month to appoint a new chief executive and three commissioners to lead the council.

He said the measures were needed to turn the authority around “after 15 years of poor governance and dysfunctional politics”.

Two mayors have been elected in district councils like Carlisle – Dorothy Thornhill, a Liberal Democrat in Watford, and Tony Egginton, an Independent in Mansfield.

Businessman Stewart Rickersey led the campaign for a referendum on an elected mayor in Mansfield. He believes the system could work in Carlisle too.

Mr Rickersey said: “It has been an outstanding success. The town is cleaner, it is run better, the council is leaner and meaner. Council-tax increases were zero for several years.

“The reason it works so much better is because we have somebody who is accountable to the electorate who has to put up for election every four years.

“Under the old system we had a leader who was elected by a handful of his cronies.”

First published at 11:21, Wednesday, 07 July 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk