Council leaders had hoped to gain approval for the introduction of a new system, involving a chief executive, a deputy chief executive, six heads of neighbourhood services, three heads of function and a new monitoring officer.

Backers of the scheme said the changes would have allowed them to deliver a more flexible and efficient service at a cheaper cost and allow them to focus on more specialised areas such as flooding problems.

But councillors voted to turn down the plans at a meeting on Thursday and stick with their existing structure, which involves one chief executive, two deputy chief executives and six heads of neighbourhood services.

Coun Gail Turner said: "These changes will simply benefit the Liberal Democrats on the council and not the Ashfield public."

And Richard Buckle, Unison branch leader for Ashfield, added: "There has already been a lot of change in the council recently and more changes will cost more money and do nothing for the people of Ashfield.

"This would lead to job cuts and that is something we will continue to oppose."

Following the rejection, the restructuring proposals cannot be brought back for discussion before the council for the next six months and are likely to be disbanded in their current form.

Council leader Jason Zadrozny told Chad the decision was a blow for people in Ashfield.

"This decision makes it much harder for us to push on the council's current rating to excellent and is sad news for both the council and tax payers," he said.

"We had listened to the concerns of opponents and made concessions and were hopeful the restructure would be approved. We will re-group and look at the objections and see if we can draw up these proposals again."