Voters will have the same electoral system after the majority of Elmbridge Council went against the leader's wishes for reform.

The full council adhered to the mantra of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and voted 29-22 to stay with the system of elections by thirds.

Making the move to all-out elections could have saves the borough £225,000 in a three-year period, and would ensure the boundaries remained the same in the upcoming boundary review.

But councillors chose to stick to the system whereby a third of councillors are up for election in a four-year cycle.

Leader of the council, Councillor John O'Reilly, asked councillors to move to all out elections at the start of the meeting on Monday, November 17.

Alluding to the boundary change and risk to two councillor wards if they stuck with the system of thirds, Coun O'Reilly said: "Be careful what you wish for. That's all I'm going to say."

Councillor James Browne said: "Are they thinking we are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic here?"

In a public consultation, about 51 per cent were for remaining with thirds, 47 per cent for all out elections and 2 per cent had no preference.

This feedback only came from about 600 people within a 98,000-strong borough, prompting Councillor Dorothy Mitchell to say: "A lot of them just couldn't care less," many councillors were keen to impress they would be listening to their residents and following the desire to stick within the current system.

Councillor Roy Green said: "The people have spoken and so let's listen to the people."

Speaking on the result of the consultation, before the vote to stick with the status quo was carried, Councillor John Sheldon said: "They look for leadership. That's why they elected us for goodness sake."