ONE of the region's high-profile mayors is to face a vote of no confidence in the management and leadership of his authority.

Stuart Drummond, Mayor of Hartlepool, has dismissed accusations made by independent councillors about his council wasting thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money and making decisions behind closed doors.

Eleven independent councillors at Hartlepool Council will next week cite ten reasons why they believe the people of the town have been let down in recent months.

Councillor Stan Kaiser said the members believed the authority had failed to keep promises to cut costs and disliked the way the council carried out its recent restructuring behind closed doors, which saw two directors receive large redundancy packages.

"It's drifting aimlessly like a ship without a rudder," said Coun Kaiser.

"It has been nave and inefficient in the reorganisation of the council and, two years ago, it decided to vet every cost and decide what was necessary for the future.

"That process has not even started and shows a total lack of urgency and flair from the mayor and his senior officers.

"We are totally disgusted and angered by this despicable situation and we intend to move a notice of lack of confidence in the mayor and management."

Last night, Mr Drummond, who was re-elected as mayor earlier this year with a massive majority and who has been shortlisted for a World Mayor award, labelled the accusations "absolute rubbish".

He said the authority's scrutiny forum had been given ample opportunity to come up with ideas on the re-structuring, but had failed to do so after 18 months.

"The important thing is that the people of Hartlepool gave me a massive vote of confidence" he said.

"You will find that a few of those people putting this motion together were beaten in the mayoral election. It smacks of sour grapes.

"There is always room for improvement, but this council is rated the third best performing council in the country by the Audit Commission and they are the important ones."

The vote will be held at next Thursday's council meeting.