The other 25 councils with postponed elections are district and borough councils, many of which held elections in 2022, although a small number were as recent as 2024.<\/p>\n
There were 63 of 136 English councils eligible for a postponement due to the local government reorganisation, meaning council elections are expected to go ahead this year in 107 councils.<\/p>\n
More than 650 councillors are affected by the postponements and will now stay in their roles for longer than expected.<\/p>\n
Conservatives are the largest group of councillors who benefit from the delays, with 238 councillors staying in post. <\/p>\n
Labour follow fairly closely with 206 councillors remaining in office, the Liberal Democrats have 81 councillors, Greens have 39, and Reform have 26.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party has seven councillors and there are 59 councillors who are independent or belong to another smaller independent party.<\/p>\n
The decision to delay the democratic process for so many areas has been criticised by the Electoral Commission, which is the watchdog responsible for overseeing the running of elections in the UK.<\/p>\n
“Scheduled elections should, as a rule, go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances,” said a spokeswoman. <\/p>\n
“That was the position we set out before Christmas, and it has not changed.<\/p>\n
“Nevertheless, the announcement from the government yesterday provides clarity for voters, campaigners and electoral administrators.<\/p>\n
“We will now work with the electoral community to ensure they understand and can effectively manage the implications of these changes, while continuing to support those in areas where elections are still going ahead.”<\/p>\n
But the government has insisted delays are needed to allow once-in-a-generation reforms to end the outdated two-tier system and build stronger local councils.<\/p>\n
Steve Reed, the minister responsible for local government, said: “Cutting through two-tier bureaucracy means faster decisions on housing, simpler access to services, and more money going to potholes, tackling crime and caring for older people instead of being lost to duplication. <\/p>\n
“That’s what residents want and that’s what reorganisation will achieve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other 25 councils with postponed elections are district and borough councils, many of which held elections in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-387482","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\/387482","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=387482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}