AN under-fire mayor has rounded on his town hall critics, warning them: "There's no place for party politics here."

Hartlepool's directly elected mayor Stuart Drummond used his second annual state of the borough debate to take a swipe at the councillors he said were trying to undermine his work. He told a gathering in the civic centre of about 100, including councillors, that opponents had shunned and isolated him.

He said they were refusing to listen to his pleas for cross-party co-operation for the good of the town.

Independent Mr Drummond, shock winner of the mayoral election last year, said: "I have lost count of the number of times that I have declared that the best way forward is by everyone working together.

"But I'm tired of offering olive branches and I'm sick of wasting my breath. I feel as if I have been deliberately shunned and isolated.

"Tragically, as I see it, this has resulted in an unfortunate and pathetic political predicament in which I have been democratically elected to carry out serious tasks . . . in a systematic vehicle which is restricted by how it can manoeuvre and operate - and manned by a crew, some of which are unwilling or unable to put all hands on the pump."

Mr Drummond's public attack comes less than a month after he was criticised by senior members of Hartlepool Borough Council as they discussed his vision for the town.

One councillor branded the mayor "nave and inexperienced" while another, Conservative leader Doug Ferriday, said: "He hasn't got the drive or the wisdom to carry out the job."

Responding to the attacks last month, Mr Drummond said: "It's now pretty obvious councillors are not going to give me support and they will criticise me at every opportunity."

At his address on Tuesday night, he said: "I have been working hard to get to grips with what politics and local government is really about and I've been learning how this new system of local governance can work. It leads me to the same conclusions, that there is no room for party politics in local government.