THE Mayor of High Wycombe will be decided by seniority from next year in a bid to remove party politics from the Charter Trustees.

The longest-serving trustee standing for the mayoralty will now assume the role before returning to the back of the queue when their year is up.

The percentage of votes trustees received in the most recent local elections would then be used to split mayoral candidates tied on the same amount of years served.

The move has been taken to eradicate party politics from influencing who should be voted in as the first citizen of the town.

It will also remove other potentially controversial tie-break scenarios, including the mayoralty being decided by names being drawn out of a hat.

Cllr Khalil Ahmed will be ‘weighed in’ as Mayor in May after his name was drawn out of the hat following a tied vote with rival Cllr Brian Pearce in January.

Leader of the Wycombe Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr Simon Parker, later said he voted for Cllr Ahmed because he felt his party ‘owed one’ to the Labour group for backing current Mayor and Lib Dem Cllr Trevor Snaith's charge last year.

He also admitted that while he felt Cllr Pearce would make a good mayor of the town he simply could not support a UKIP councillor.

The Mayor and Charter Trustees – town councillors who perform ceremonial duties in addition to their ward roles – are supposed to be apolitical.