A councillor’s bid to get Fenland Council to switch from a cabinet style system of governance to committees fell at the first hurdle.

Cllr Peter Tunley withdrew the motion from last Thursday’s council meeting after realising the ruling Tory group- of which he was previously a member- was unlikely to allow a free vote on the issue.

His statement withdrawing the motion followed the announcement by Alan Pain, the council’s monitoring officer, that if a committee system was agreed it could not be undone for at five years.

Mr Pain had also warned that only a referendum could undo a council decision – with the cost of running such a referendum liable to cost the council in excess of £100,000.

In his motion Cllr Tunley had claimed committees would offer “democracy and accountability for all councillors and therefore all electors”.

He had also claimed that the cabinet system had ensured “ordinary councillors of all parties have been denied the right to a public vote on many important decision making processes and that this is fundamentally undemocratic”.

Cllr Tunley, who has switched to independent from Conservative, is planning to re-instate the debate over committee systems if he is successful in the May elections.