More than 4 million people will see their local elections delayed in 29 council areas as part of the government’s shake-up of English councils, a cabinet minister confirmed on Thursday.
Steve Reed, the local government secretary, said the vast majority of polls would go ahead as planned in May but some would be postponed.
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.
It comes on top of a previous decision to postpone elections in nine council areas in 2025 – East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex, Thurrock, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey – amid the reorganisation of local government in England. This means some voters will have had a two-year delay in going to the polls.
The long-awaited decision was condemned by Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, whose party is challenging the move in a judicial review. He accused Keir Starmer of “colluding with Labour and Tory councils to cancel 30 council elections on 7 May”.
“Millions of people’s right to vote has been taken away. Reform UK are fighting this denial of democracy in the high court,” he added.
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.
The situation was also questioned by Florence Eshalomi, the Labour chair of the committee on housing, communities and local government, who said “democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out” during the reorganisation process.
The MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green said: “Our councils should not have to face choosing between frontline services or elections.”
Elections will go ahead after a year’s delay for voters in some areas, including polls to elect councillors to Essex county council, Hampshire county council and Isle of Wight council.
Reed said: “I 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.”
The minister added: “To those who say we’ve cancelled all the elections, we haven’t. To those who say it’s all Labour councils, it isn’t. I’ve asked, I’ve listened, and I’ve acted. No messing about, no playing politics, just getting on with the job of making local government work better for local people.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has plans to end a two-tier system of local government throughout much of England, where district and county councils take on different responsibilities in the same area. This system will be replaced with a set of single-tier “unitary” authorities.
“Once the new unitary councils are agreed, we will hold elections to them in 2027,” Reed said.
James Cleverly, the Conservative shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, accused Reed of trying to score a “political gotcha”.
He said: “It is clear what he wants – he wants to cancel all these elections. So, why does he not simply say so? It’s because he wants to shift the blame. He wants to say, ‘I didn’t make them do it.’ He wants a political gotcha.”
Reed replied that he had “imposed nothing”, and said he had tried to secure a “locally led approach”.
