All four Black Country councils were today asking local people whether they want a directly-elected mayor.

Wolverhampton City Council has become the latest authority to launch a four-week public consultation which could see the present system scrapped and replaced by a powerful, ruling mayor to match the set-up in London.

If five per cent of the city’s 236,000 population makes a request for a directly elected mayor, the city would be forced by law to have a referendum on it.

The consultation is being forced on councils under the requirements of the Local Government Act, and follows similar public surveys now under way in Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell.

Every unitary town hall elsewhere has to do the same by the end of the year, in the first public consultation on the way local government operates since the year 2000.

All councils in the Black Country have a cabinet system similar to the way Government operates, with nine cabinet members and an elected leader.