DARLINGTON will continue with its present political set-up after people voted against an elected mayor.

A total of 19,217 cast their votes in yesterday's election - equating to 24.65 per cent of the electorate.

Of those, 11,226 people voted 'no', to a mayor and 7,981 voted 'yes'.

Reacting to the result, Labour cabinet member Nick Wallis said: "My personal democratic values mean I am instinctively suspicious of gimmicky answers to long-standing problems.

"All over the country there is a crisis of democracy in terms of engaging people. After knocking on doors for the May election we saw the need to better engage the residents of the town.

"The question is how we move forward, how we listen better, how we engage with residents and communicate with them."

Harvey Smith, one of the leaders of the 'Yes' campaign, said: "It wasn't a bad result at the end of the day.

"We got 41 per cent of the result. 41 per cent of people are not very happy, and the people of this town have got plenty of things to be upset about.

"Two things scuppered our campaign. The 'No' campaign said an elected mayor would cost more money - but the amount of money that could have been saved doesn't bear thinking about.

"The general apathy of the public also counted against us. People don't trust politicians and don't want anything to do with them."

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