Council shake-up sees elections delayed in nine areas

Local elections in East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex, Thurrock, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey will be delayed for one year to allow major reorganisations to take place, Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner has said.

Speaking to Parliament, Rayner said the postponement would pave the way for a "generational power shift from Whitehall to the town hall".

She said that holding elections for authorities that were due to be scrapped would be "an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers' money".

However, Conservative shadow minister Kevin Hollinrake said the "mass postponement" was a "worrying day for democracy".

The shake-up of local councils, announced by the government last year, will see smaller district councils merged with local county councils to create single bodies known as unitary authorities.

The new bodies would represent populations of around 500,000.

Hollinrake accused Rayner of "creating a new tier of Orwellian-sounding, strategic authorities which are closer to her and closer to Whitehall".

He added: "These are for her to use as a pawn to implement this government's deeply unpopular socialist agenda."

Reform UK has launched a petition against the delay in elections, with leader Nigel Farage on X claiming that "Labour and the Tories have colluded to officially cancel over 5.5 million votes in May".

Speaking at a press conference in Westminster, he blamed the "cowardice of the existing political class" for the move.

Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey MP said the delays were a "disgraceful stitch up between Labour and the Conservatives".

"The Liberal Democrats made sweeping gains against the Conservatives at the general election, and now failing Tory-run councils are running scared and denying voters a chance to kick them out of office in May."

Both parties had been hoping to make gains in this set of elections.

In addition to merging councils, the government has also said it wants more places in England to have mayors, who would get powers over areas such as housing and transport.

In her statement, Rayner announced six new devolution areas which she hoped would get to elect new mayors in May 2026: Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton.

"These places will get a fast-track ticket to drive real change in their area," she told MPs.

"While devolution can sound techie, the outcome is simple - it's a plan for putting more money in people's pockets, it's a plan for quicker, better, cheaper transport designed with local people in mind, a plan for putting politics back in the service."

Bodies representing smaller councils have argued that the proposals will not save money but will weaken the link between communities and their councillors.

Announcing its devolution plans last year, the government invited councils to submit reorganisation proposals and said it would consider requests for election delays to allow changes to take place.

In January, the government said that of the 21 county councils due to hold elections, 16 had requested postponements. Two of the 10 unitary councils had also made the same request.

On Wednesday, Rayner told MPs she had only agreed to half of the requests for postponements made by local authorities, and that delaying elections to allow for restructuring was a "well established precedent".

"After careful consideration, I've only agreed to postpone elections in places where this is central to our manifesto promise to deliver devolution," she said.

"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."

Local elections for county councils will still go ahead this year on 1 May in Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

Co-leader of the Green Party Adrian Ramsay expressed concern that the changes would mean "centralising power from local communities to remote county councils".

He added that without elections, county councillors would have no mandate to negotiate the new structures.

Councillor Marianne Overton, leader of the Independent Network of Councillors across England and Wales, said: "There is still no clarity on how the cost of reorganisation will be met beyond asset stripping existing councils.

"This will move democracy further away from residents, putting power into the hands of the few, not the many."

Some of the councils who had seen their request for a delay rejected responded angrily to Rayner's announcement.

The leaders of Kent and Medway councils, Roger Gough and Vince Maple said the decision was "undoubtedly disappointing" adding: "The reason we have been given is both confusing and insufficient and we will be seeking more detail from ministers as to the rationale as soon as possible."

The Local Government Association said the government needed to ensure the councils had enough money to implement reorganisations and said costs varied from £25m - £100m.