“I wouldn’t want the job.”

These are the words of Eastleigh Borough Council leader Keith House after the authority decided to keep the system of rule and reject the idea of an all powerful, elected mayor.

A public consultation of the borough’s 95,000-strong electorate returned only 14 responses on whether they wanted a London-style elected mayor like Boris Johnson.

Nine were in favour of an elected mayor, two in favour of the current system and three that just asked questions.

The authority decided to keep its Cabinet and Leader Plus model formalising it and giving Cllr House the power to appoint his own Cabinet, which was previously voted in by council, and be elected for a term of four years, as opposed to one.

Because of the Lib Dem’s dominance in the chambers this change is unlikely to make any difference to the make-up of the inner circle.

Five percent of the electorate, 4,751 residents, would have been needed to prompt a referendum.

Cllr House said: “We struggle to get responses to this questionnaire because it doesn’t excite people. I feel the current system is better than having an all powerful mayor. “I wouldn’t want to see all power concentrated in one pair of hands.

“I wouldn’t want the job.”

Many councils got even less responses than Eastleigh.

After three councillors left the Lib Dems en masse, as exclusively revealed by the Daily Echo, the ruling party now have 36 members while Tories have four, the newly formed Independent Party of Eastleigh Councillors have three and Labour have one.