A wide range of communities are demonstrating a desire to reconnect local people with local politics.

John Williams

The New Local Government Network, an independent group campaigning for directly elected mayors, says it believes more than twenty English towns and cities will hold referendums this year.

Berwick upon Tweed will be holding one of the first, triggered by a petition with enough signatures to force the local authority to hold a referendum in May.

There will also be one in Birmingham in September or October.

Refendums are also being organised in Brighton, Watford and the London borough of Lewisham.

'Democracy day'

And petitions to hold similar votes are being gathered in Bradford, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Bristol and Liverpool.

The New Local Government Network is pressing all the local authorities involved to coordinate their plans into a "democracy day" to help capture public imagination.

Its executive director, John Williams told BBC News Online: "We are very pleased with developments over the past few months.

"A wide range of communities are demonstrating a desire to reconnect local people with local politics."

Mr Williams believes directly elected mayors will provide the catalyst for boosting voter turnout in local polls.

Ken Livingstone: directly elected

Other benefits he sees include increased media interest in local issues, more accountable decision making including knowing "where the buck stops", and increasing competition between political parties and independent candidates.

In Birmingham, the Labour-led council has used the mayoral debate to explore other ways of widening public involvement in its work.

In early February it published a discussion document called "A New Partnership for Governance", which aims to give more power to local people to shape services such as road repairs, street lighting and cleaning, rubbish collection, employment schemes - and to decide how the money is spent on those services.

Around �50m additional Government cash from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund will be spent in the city over the next three years, and local people may be given a direct say in how much of this money is allocated.

If the people of Birmingham decide they do want a directly elected mayor in the autumn referendum, the contest itself will take place in May 2002.