People may remember this from 2009 when only 102 people voted for an elected mayor for Wigan.
Despite this Lord Smith is pushing ahead with his plans to become the first Lord Mayor of Manchester
Moves for Wigan to have its own Boris Johnson-style elected
Mayor have been met with apathy!
Despite a huge consultation exercise of 230,000 adults
registered as residents in Wigan borough, just 123 have bothered to vote on
whether we should have our own Mayor. But of those who did bother to take part, more than 82 per
cent of the respondents wanted an elected Mayor for Wigan, with 17.3 percent
(21 respondents) preferring the 'Leader' system.
A special meeting of the full council will be held on
Wednesday to hear the results.
Councillors are being urged to endorse the current Leader
and Cabinet model from May's town hall elections. But from next year the Leader, currently Lord Peter Smith,
will have a fixed term of office of four years with enhanced executive powers
and the Cabinet will be limited to a maximum of 10.
The Metro's consultation took the form of an article in
their Borough Life magazine, which is sent to 139,000 Wigan homes.
Others articles were carried in the Evening Post and our
sister titles, the Wigan Observer plus the Wigan/Leigh Reporters. The consultation was also highlighted on the council's
website, with a link to a dedicated electronic survey form.
Members of the public were also invited to send in their
views. The response rate actually works out at a pitiful 0.051 per cent.
A council spokesman acknowledged that the response rate had
been "extremely low" and therefore any weight given to it would be
difficult to evaluate.
Angry Independent Coun Norman Bradbury – a former member of
the ruling Labour group himself – dismissed the consultation exercise as a
"insult to democracy." But Borough Solicitor Kevin Lawson said: "Wigan has
done as much as most councils to consult residents. "But the fact is that, for whatever reason, it does not
appear to be a subject that has interested most people."
Even Lisa Nandy Labour MP has criticised the backroom tactics that went on..
http://www.lisanandy.co.uk/news/we-need-a-real-debate-on-devolution-and-an-end-to-backroom-deals/
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