CONSERVATIVE councillors in Pendle have called for changes to be made to the way the borough council is run following this year’s May local elections.

The 19-strong Conservative team is calling for an elected mayor of Pendle to replace the current leader of the hung council – a role currently held by Labour’s Mohammed Iqbal.

The move will be debated at Pendle’s full council meeting on October 15.

It comes after Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors voted through a vote of no confidence in former leader, Conservative councillor Joe Cooney, earlier this year.

The new system would see residents choosing who leads the 49-seat council, with everyone in the borough getting a vote on who should get the top job.

Deputy Conservative leader, Cllr Paul White, said: “We have had literally hundreds of people contact us since the election saying how unhappy they were, so we owe this to those people who voted for us.

“We’re going to take this to full council next week and ask them to agree it, but if they don’t, we plan to trigger a referendum, which will allow the people of Pendle to have their say on whether what has happened is what they wanted, or whether they would rather have a system that gives them the leadership they actually voted for."