18 councils make requests to postpone elections ahead of reorganisation
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Council leaders representing 18 authorities in England have asked the Government to postpone elections this year, ahead of the biggest reorganisation of local government in decades. The Government wants to abolish two-tier council areas in order to devolve more power from Westminster.
With 21 county councils and 10 unitary authorities due to hold elections this May, some have sought to delay them to allow time to develop proposals on reorganisation. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it has received requests from 16 counties and two unitary authorities that involve “postponing their election from 2025 to 2026”.
They are: Derbyshire, Devon, East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Thurrock, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire. Local government minister Jim McMahon, responding to an urgent question in the Commons, said: “Where local elections are postponed, we’ll work with local areas to move elections to a new shadow unitary council as soon as possible. This is a very high bar, and rightly so.”.
He added: “For the avoidance of doubt, this is a list of requests, it’s not the final list that will be approved. “We will consider carefully these requests and only postpone elections where there is a clear commitment to delivering both reorganisation and devolution to the ambitious timetable set out.
