The petition of residents of West Sussex,
Declares that if the Government were to agree to a request from West Sussex County Council to delay its election due this May, this would result in sitting councillors serving for up to six years, rather than the usual four, resulting in a democratic deficit.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reject any request from West Sussex County Council to delay its election, enabling the election to go ahead as planned in May 2026.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Alison Bennett, Official Report, 7 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 410.]
[P003155]
Observations from The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern):
This Government are undertaking a once-in-a-generation reform of local government and we will end the outdated two-tier system with new single-tier councils within this Parliament. Our vision is clear: stronger local councils equipped to drive economic growth, improve local public services and empower their communities.
In December 2025, in response to concerns voiced by councils about their capacity to deliver a timely and safe transition to new councils alongside resource-intensive elections in May 2026, the Government wrote to 63 councils that are due to hold local elections to hear their views on the potential postponement of those elections. It is only right that the Government listened to councils who were expressing these concerns.
The Government have now carefully considered the representations made. Over 400 representations were received from councils with elections scheduled in May and from other councils, interested organisations, Members of Parliament and members of the public. The Secretary of State heard from councils across the country about the capacity challenges they face as they seek to deliver local government reorganisation and how postponement would release essential capacity.
In response to the Government’s 18 December letter, many councils gave the view that their elections should go ahead and many asked us to consider postponing. Some councils sought postponement but did not provide sufficient evidence to support a postponement decision. Where councils have asked for their elections to go ahead, those elections are proceeding.
After considering all the representations made, the Secretary of State decided to bring forward legislation to postpone 30 elections. There were 136 local council elections across England scheduled to go ahead in May 2026. Following these decisions, 106 will continue to take place in May 2026 and 30 will be postponed, including those of West Sussex county council.
In areas where elections are postponed, existing councillors will have their term of office extended for a short period to smooth the transition to new unitary councils. We expect elections to the new councils to take place at the earliest opportunity in 2027.
These decisions follow precedent. Between 2019 and 2022, the then Government postponed many local council elections. Postponement then, as now, is to enable focused work on reorganisation, and to avoid the cost and disruption of holding elections to a council which will shortly cease to exist.