Background
Following the publication of the English Devolution White Paper on 16 December 2024, which set out the government's plans for local government reorganisation, some of the elections scheduled for May 2025 will delayed by up to a year while reorganisation takes place. [6] County councils and unitary authorities had until 10 January 2025 to request to join the Government's Devolution Priority Programme and ask the Government to cancel or postpone their regularly scheduled elections. [7] At least 13 of the 21 county councils asked the government to delay their elections. [8] On 5 February 2025, the government announced that elections to nine councils (seven county councils and two unitary authorities) would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring to take place, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026. [9]
On 2 January 2025, 20 Borough of Broxtowe councillors in Nottinghamshire resigned from the Labour party to form the Broxtowe Independents in protest against Keir Starmer. They criticised Labour national policy on the winter fuel payment, the WASPI women, bus fare increases, the two-child benefit cap, the war in Gaza, [10] and plans to reorganise local government, which could see district and borough councils scrapped. They said that 10 of their members were prevented from standing for Labour in the upcoming Nottinghamshire County Council election due to their criticism of government policy. The resignations resulted in Labour losing control of Broxtowe Borough Council, with the number of Labour councillors dropping from 26 to 6, with Broxtowe Independents saying they intended to run the council as a minority administration and run a full slate of candidates in the 2025 local elections. [11]
England
County councils
There are 21 county councils in England. All of them hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, 7 county councils (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex, and Hampshire) had their elections cancelled due to local government reorganisation. A total of 16 county councils applied for their elections to be cancelled. Further, Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire applied for their elections to be cancelled, [12] but will not be reorganised so will proceed as scheduled.
Unitary authorities
There are 62 unitary authorities, which are single-tier local authorities. Ten of them were due to hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, Isle of Wight and Thurrock had their elections cancelled due to local government reorganisation. Owing to boundary changes several authorities will see a significant reduction in the number of councillors elected: Buckinghamshire reduces from 147 to 97, Durham goes from 126 to 98 and West Northamptonshire will elect 76 instead of 93.
Combined authority mayors
Mayoralties covering a single local authority
City of London Corporation
Elections delayed to 2026
These elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2025, but on 5 February 2025 it was announced that they would be delayed by a year to 2026 to allow for reorganisation of local government structure. The House of Lords have acted to prevent this happening. [13]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
