{"id":385429,"date":"2026-01-23T04:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385429\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T04:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:02:08","slug":"local-elections-to-be-delayed-in-29-areas-in-england-as-part-of-shake-up-of-councils-local-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385429\/","title":{"rendered":"Local elections to be delayed in 29 areas in England as part of shake-up of councils | Local elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 4 million people will see their local elections delayed in 29 council areas as part of the government\u2019s shake-up of English councils, a cabinet minister confirmed on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Steve Reed, the local government secretary, said the vast majority of polls would go ahead as planned in May but some would be postponed.<\/p>\n

City councils in Lincoln, Exeter, Norwich, Peterborough and Preston are among the authorities where votes will not take place on 7 May, alongside several districts such as Cannock Chase, Harlow, Welwyn Hatfield and West Lancashire, plus county councils in East Sussex, West Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk.<\/p>\n

It comes on top of a previous decision to postpone elections in nine council areas in 2025 \u2013 East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex, Thurrock, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey \u2013 amid the reorganisation of local government in England<\/a>. This means some voters will have had a two-year delay in going to the polls.<\/p>\n

The long-awaited decision was condemned by Nigel Farage<\/a>, the Reform UK leader, whose party is challenging the move in a judicial review. He accused Keir Starmer of \u201ccolluding with Labour and Tory councils to cancel 30 council elections on 7 May\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of people\u2019s right to vote has been taken away. Reform UK are fighting this denial of democracy in the high court,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Reform enjoyed success in the local elections last May, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 councils, including Kent and County Durham. The party also toppled a 14,000-strong Labour majority in a parliamentary byelection.<\/p>\n

The situation was also questioned by Florence Eshalomi, the Labour chair of the committee on housing, communities and local government, who said \u201cdemocracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out\u201d during the reorganisation process.<\/p>\n

The MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green said: \u201cOur councils should not have to face choosing between frontline services or elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elections will go ahead after a year\u2019s delay for voters in some areas, including polls to elect councillors to Essex county council, Hampshire county council and Isle of Wight council.<\/p>\n

Reed said: \u201cI have received one further representation this morning and I will consider, then report back to the house on my decision. In all other areas, council elections will go ahead as planned, many having offered no evidence that it would delay reorganisation in their areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minister added: \u201cTo those who say we\u2019ve cancelled all the elections, we haven\u2019t. To those who say it\u2019s all Labour councils, it isn\u2019t. I\u2019ve asked, I\u2019ve listened, and I\u2019ve acted. No messing about, no playing politics, just getting on with the job of making local government work better for local people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has plans to end a two-tier system of local government throughout much of England<\/a>, where district and county councils take on different responsibilities in the same area. This system will be replaced with a set of single-tier \u201cunitary\u201d authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the new unitary councils are agreed, we will hold elections to them in 2027,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

James Cleverly, the Conservative shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, accused Reed of trying to score a \u201cpolitical gotcha\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt is clear what he wants \u2013 he wants to cancel all these elections. So, why does he not simply say so? It\u2019s because he wants to shift the blame. He wants to say, \u2018I didn\u2019t make them do it.\u2019 He wants a political gotcha.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reed replied that he had \u201cimposed nothing\u201d, and said he had tried to secure a \u201clocally led approach\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 4 million people will see their local elections delayed in 29 council areas as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-385429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}