Nine English council elections postponed amid local government shake-up

Local elections in nine councils across England are to be postponed for a year as part of devolution measures which will see local government in the areas reorganised, Angela Rayner has announced.

The communities secretary, who is also the deputy prime minister, said her department had agreed to delay elections in half the areas that were seeking to introduce elected mayors, telling the Commons it would be pointless to have “elections to bodies that won’t exist”.

But the delays to elections due in May for nine councils – Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Thurrock, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Surrey – were condemned by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Rayner said the shake-up of local government would see six elected mayors introduced, for Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton. Elections for these would happen in May 2026, she said.

“These places will get a fast-track ticket to drive real change in their area,” Rayner told MPs, saying that a seventh area, Lancashire, would examine making the same change in the autumn.

“The government’s starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there is a strong justification for postponement, and the bar is high, and rightly so,” she said. “After careful consideration, I’ve only agreed to postpone elections in places where this is central to our manifesto promise to deliver devolution.

“We’re not in the business of holding elections to bodies that won’t exist and where we don’t know what will replace them. This would be an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money and any party calling for these elections to go ahead must explain how this waste would be justifiable.”

The government’s proposals to abolish two-tier council areas were announced in December as part of Labour’s aim to devolve more power from Westminster.

With 21 county councils and 10 unitary authorities due to hold elections in May, some asked to delay them to allow time to develop proposals on reorganisation.

Other councils that sought a delay included Warwickshire, Devon, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Kent and Worcestershire, as well as Oxfordshire. The bulk of the affected councils are Conservative-run, prompting accusations that the party was seeking to avoid electoral losses.

Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow levelling up secretary, criticised the decision to postpone elections so soon before May.

“The Labour government have massively rushed this whole exercise,” he said. “There has been no attempt to gather consensus within two-tier areas. Local residents have not been consulted. This whole process should be considered in slower time, with proper and open consultation, and not imposed from Whitehall on your town hall.”

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey – whose party hopes to make gains in May – said the plan was “a disgraceful stitch-up between Labour and the Conservatives”.