VOTERS in Liverpool will be asked if they want an “executive mayor” – with powers over housing, planning and regeneration – in a referendum next year, the Daily Post can reveal.

New Communities Secretary Eric Pickles will push for a mass Referendum Day to be “an early priority”, with compulsory polls on elected mayors in each of England’s 12 biggest cities.

The mayor would be far more powerful than the existing 11 directly-elected leaders, outside London – with responsibility for transport also possibly up for grabs.

And he or she could abolish the city council’s highly-paid chief executive, to enjoy “hands-on power” to hire and fire staff, decide how the council was run and direct spending.

Asked about ‘Referendum Day’, an insider at the department for communities and local government (DCLG) replied: “It will be shaped by what is in the Queen's Speech, but we expect that to be an early priority.”

Lord Heseltine – the one-time ‘Minister for Merseyside’ under Margaret Thatcher – led an inquiry into the extra powers of “executive mayors”, which has yet to be published.

Legislation in the Queen’s Speech, on May 25, is also expected to sweep away all of Labour’s controversial regional structures, including the North West Development Agency (NWDA) in Warrington.

It would be replaced by town hall-led ‘local enterprise partnerships’ – despite fierce criticism from the Tory-friendly CBI and British Chambers of Commerce, which warned investment will suffer.

The Tories have hinted that a drastically-slimmed down RDA could survive where it was popular, but it would be stripped of powers over housing and planning, concentrating simply on business support.