BEXLEY Council has rejected the idea of an elected mayor to take over the running of the borough, for a second time.

The council says it consulted on its website for two months over this summer on the issue and placed a public notice about the consultation in News Shopper.

It says the majority of those who responded were not in favour of a system involving a directly elected mayor.

And it has used the consultation result to back its own view that a council leader and cabinet, similar to the current set-up, is the best way forward for the borough.

But details of the consultation do not show a ringing endorsement of the council’s decision.

A report revealed only 0.056 per cent of Bexley’s registered voters bothered to give an opinion.

In other words, only 99 of the 175,000 registered voters in Bexley responded to the consultation.

Of those, 81 (82 per cent) were in favour of a leader and cabinet-style council and 18 people (18 per cent) against.

Bexley claims 99 responses “compares favourably” with other London boroughs and says in one which recently consulted, there were no responses at all.

All local authorities have been forced by government legislation to consult again on the idea of a directly elected mayor and Bexley’s decision will come into force three days after next year’s borough elections.

The choice was between a mayor elected directly by voters who would then choose his or her own executive of up to 10 councillors or a council leader elected from councillors by the full council with up to nine councillors to act as cabinet members.

The difference from the current system is both the leader or a directly elected mayor would serve for four years.

Bexley says the leader and cabinet system has worked well since it first took a decision to reject an elected mayor, in 2000.

Last week councillors voted unanimously to keep the present, slightly amended, system.