Millions of people could not be able to vote in their local elections later on this year after dozens of councils asked for them to be postponed.
At least 30 councils in England have requested to postpone their elections, due in May, in the face of Sir Keir Starmer’s rejigging of local government.
Out of the 63 authorities, including city and borough councils, more than a third have asked to postpone, while 33 want to go ahead.
If postponed, this will prevent more than 2.5 million people from voting.
Opposition parties say Labour is ‘running scared’ of voters, and delaying would be an attempt to keep seats in the face of negative polls.
Here’s a roundup of which councils are going to postpone their elections later on this year.
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Which councils requested to postpone May elections?
Data gathered by the BBC and Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) says the 30 councils below have asked for the elections to be postponed.
- Adur Borough Council
- Arun District Council
- Basildon Borough Council
- Blackburn with Darwen Council
- Burnley Borough Council
- Cheltenham Borough Council
- Chorley Borough Council
- Crawley Borough Council
- Eastbourne Borough Council
- East Sussex County Council
- Exeter City Council
- Hastings Borough Council
- Horsham District Council
- Hyndburn Borough Council
- Ipswich Borough Council
- Lewes District Council
- Mid Sussex District Council
- Norwich City Council
- Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council
- Pendle Borough Council
- Peterborough City Council
- Preston City Council
- Redditch Borough Council
- Rother District Council
- Rugby Borough Council
- Stevenage Borough Council
- Thurrock Council
- Wealden District Council
- West Sussex County Council
- Worthing Borough Council
Why are they making the request?
It comes after the Government unveiled a new plan to combine district and county councils into a handful of ‘unitary authorities’, getting rid of the two-tier system that exists in many parts of England.
The government say that the two-tier system ‘slows down decision making and delivery, leads to fragmented public services, sees money wasted on duplication and makes it unclear who is responsible for what and where accountability lies.
‘Our ambition is to simplify local government, by ending the two-tier system and establishing new single-tier unitary councils.’
Also, PwC’s research reveals that replacing the current system with new centralised councils, overseeing minimum populations of 500,000, may save at least £1.8 billion over five years.
The move was included in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, and they later unveiled more details in their white paper, which was published in December 2024.
Ministers say that some councillors ‘are concerned about the cost to the taxpayers of holding elections to councils that are proposed to shortly be abolished’.
ITV reports that West Sussex County Council said the cost of elections planned in 2026, 2027 and 2028 would cost taxpayers £9 million.
Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told The Times: ‘Running a series of elections for short-lived zombie councils will be costly, time-consuming and will take scarce resources away from front-line services like fixing potholes and social care.’
Most councillors supporting a delay are Labour representatives, therefore some see requests to delay as an attempt to keep their seats in the face of declining public opinion on the party.
However, three are Conservative-led, and one is Liberal Democrat-led.
Will the request be allowed?
Ministers told the councils last month that if there were ‘genuine concerns’ about delivering local elections amid the government’s new plan, they would authorise delays.
The deadline for councils to make the request is today – Thursday, January 15 – and Westminster is expected to make the final decision about whether to postpone over the next few days.
It is expected they will approve the requests, especially due to increasingly negative polls on the party.
If accepted, this will be the second year in a row that this has happened, meaning that councillors who have already sat a year past their original end date will have another year to serve.
What are people saying about the request to postpone?
Many see the potential to postpone the election as undemocratic, including many constituents from Reddich.
Police were called to a protest outside the Labour-run council in Worcestershire, where they discussed asking for a postponement.
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, previously suggested that delaying elections breached human rights, and Nigel Farage has launched a legal bid to prevent delays from being allowed.
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