VOTERS in Bristol have decided to abolish the city’s directly elected mayor following a referendum. 

Bristol’s Labour Mayor Marvin Reese will now serve his term until 2024, after which time the city will return to a committee system. 

Fifty-nine per cent voted for the role to be scrapped, and there was a turnout of 29 per cent, it was revealed today. 

Opposition councillors had campaigned for a return to the committee system, whereby decisions are made by a group of councillors, arguing that the elected mayor position wielded too much power. 

Green group leader and councillor Heather Mack said the referendum vote marked “a new chapter in the way our city is run.”

She said: “For many years now, important decisions affecting the city have been made behind closed doors by just one person whom the public and elected councillors cannot easily challenge.

“We look forward to a fairer, more open way of doing business where decisions are made collaboratively.”

Despite making up the biggest joint party in Bristol with Labour, the Greens were not given seats in Mr Reese’s Cabinet. 

Responding to the outcome, Mr Reese said he believed the committee was “a very poor system.”

He said: “I hope I am wrong, because certainly the city faces challenges and the city needs a leadership that can lead it in the face of the challenges and opportunities.”

The mayoral post was first created in 2012.

Bristol City Council said the result was likely to be ratified by councillors at a meeting later in May.