ROYSTON’S area committee will not support the use of former mayors’ names on a new development in the town.

The body decided not to support a suggestion to name streets after Peter Lill, Bill Prime, Charles Lander and Leo Doyle - an idea spawned at a Royston Town Council meeting.

District councillor Bill Davidson, speaking at last night’s (Wednesday) area committee meeting, said: “If we’re going to start using mayors names and ex-councillors we’re going to need a pretty big site, there’s 61 mayors - we’ll need a lot of roads for that.”

The town council proposed to name the roads Peter Lill Way, Bill Prime Grove, Charles Lander Avenue and Leo Doyle Close after disagreeing with the developers suggestions - which were in Latin.

County and district councillor Tony Hunter said he saw an issue in singling out particular mayors or councillors.

“I have been approached by two people who say thereby the history of Royston they had grandfathers and relations who were prime members of the council,” he said

“They’re saying ‘what about them?’

“Because I suppose, if you look back, there must be a raft of names that can be put on a list that could be used for names going forward in the town,”

The committee put forward a number of ideas including botanists, wild flowers found on the heath, butterflies, and names associated with Royston’s twin towns.

Summing up the committee’s chairman, Fiona Hill, said: “I think we’re all agreed the main road should be linked to Ivy whether it’s English, Latin, French, Spanish or German.

“I propose that it’s linked to Ivy and we then need to come up with some other ideas and we put these ideas forward and probably not going for butterflies with double names - as that’s getting cumbersome.

“It’s not appropriate to go along with the suggestions and no derogatory comment at all to any previous mayors or councillors.”

The suggestions will now be reviewed by North Herts District Council and the Post Office.