A new East Midlands Mayor, who will cover the whole of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, is due to be elected next May.
Since a deal to hand huge new powers and funding to Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was signed last year, there has been much debate about the new mayoral role it comes with. This taxpayer-funded office holder, who will be on an estimated salary of around £80,000, will take charge of the new authority being set up to handle all this new power and funding.
This role would have replaced the Leader of Nottingham City Council, chosen by fellow councillors within their party. Despite a hard-fought campaign, the result was an emphatic no to having a mayor. Nearly all ten of the cities voted no in terms of having a mayor. Ironically, the only city to vote yes was Bristol, where another referendum was held just last year that decided to scrap the mayoral role after just a decade.
More controversially, Labour claimed in a later leaflet that a vote in favour of a mayor could open the door to racists running the city. In particular, the party claimed that having a directly-elected mayor would give the BNP and English Defence League a chance to take control, a notion given short shrift by the city.
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