Brian Watkins, the leader of the council’s main opposition group the Liberal Democrats, said: “They claim to support them going ahead, but the letter proceeds to make the strongest possible case against this being allowed to happen.”
Rowett continued: “This is not the way to run a democracy.”
She added the council had a budget to run elections, and that while new councillors might need training “these are the costs of ensuring that the administration has a democratic mandate”.
Robin Hunter-Clarke, Reform UK’s Norfolk organiser, said he believed the letter “has now made it very likely the government will now cancel the elections”.
Hunter-Clarke, who quit the Tories after the decision to postpone last year’s vote, said pushing elections back was “dangerous for democracy”.
But Steve Morphew on the other hand, leader of the county council’s Labour group, admitted that devolution required “a vast amount of work”.