VOTERS will not be able to choose the mayor after the Tweed councillors decided to abandon a referendum on whether to have popularly elected mayors.

A referendum was to be held at the council elections in September to let the voters decide if they wanted to elect a mayor and increase the size of the council from seven councillors to nine.

Neither referendum will go ahead.

Councillor Phil Youngblutt was a strong critic of the referendum.

He said the issue of a larger council ran second to the issue of a popularly elected mayor.

"The main reason for not supporting it (popularly elected mayor) was that you can buy that job if you wanted to," Cr Youngblutt said.

Cr Kevin Skinner initially supported a referendum but changed his vote last night to kill any chance of a referendum.

"As much as I would love to give people there are only 33 councils that have popularly elected mayors and I found that once you put that situation in place it won't change," Cr Skinner said.

"Sometimes it is unworkable."

Cr Skinner admitted that his initial support for a referendum was a "kneejerk reaction."

"I was a bit upset when I only survived one year as mayor and supporting a referendum was a bit of a kneejerk reaction," Cr Skinner said.

A poll at the council election to get public option on the Byrrill Creek dam project will also not go ahead.