Are this year’s local elections being ‘cancelled’?

In recent weeks we’ve seen lots of claims about council elections in May being “cancelled”—from politicians, in the media and on social media, where some have also  suggested the elections have been cancelled “till 2027” or are set to be cancelled “for the first time since World War II”.  

The claims are based on the news that some councils in England have asked to delay elections which were due to take place this May, due to a reorganisation of local government. After a government announcement on 5 February, we now know that nine councils will have their May 2025 elections postponed until May 2026. 

The prospect of postponement has attracted fierce criticism from some politicians from across the political spectrum, with one Conservative MP calling it “anti-democratic”, the Liberal Democrats describing it as a “scandal” and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claiming: “Only dictators cancel elections.” 

Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats have particularly criticised the Conservatives, as most of the councils that asked for election delays are Conservative-led. The Green Party said county councils had made “rushed and undemocratic pleas” to postpone elections and wanted all May elections to go ahead as initially planned.

Prior to announcing which elections will be delayed, the government said that postponements would only be considered to “help an area to deliver reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeline”. It has also said that there is a “well-established precedent” for postponing elections due to reorganisation. 

Here’s what we know about what’s happening.

Why are some council elections being postponed? 

Some councils in England with elections scheduled for May 2025, including all county councils and some unitary authorities, have been able to ask the government for these to be postponed, if the councils wish to take part in the first phase of the government’s reorganisation plans. 

Some areas of England are covered by a single unitary authority, while others are covered by the “two-tier” system, in which responsibility for services is shared between the 21 county councils and the 164 district councils they cover. 

The government wants to move councils in two-tier forms of local government to single-tier unitary authorities. 

Sixteen county councils and two unitary authorities asked the government for permission to postpone their local elections to take part in this local government reorganisation, with nine of these requests now granted.

While politicians from different parties and even the local government minister have referred to the prospect of council elections being “cancelled”, the government has generally used the term “postponed”, with delayed votes now due to take place in May 2026. 

What local elections are scheduled for May 2025?

Some 33 local authority elections were initially due to take place in England on 1 May 2025, including for all 21 county councils, nine unitary councils, the unitary authority of Thurrock, and one metropolitan district council (City of Doncaster), as well as the Isles of Scilly.

On 5 February, housing, communities and local government secretary Angela Rayner told Parliament that six areas had been granted places on the government’s “devolution priority programme with a view to mayoral elections in May 2026”: Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton. 

Not all of these areas were due to have local elections in May 2025, but elections will be postponed to May 2026 in seven county councils (East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and West Sussex), as well as two unitary councils (Thurrock and Isle of Wight). Six of these councils are under Conservative control, while East Sussex and the Isle of Wight are under no overall control and Thurrock is under Labour control. 

These rescheduled elections won’t be for the existing county or unitary councils. Local government minister Jim McMahon MP said on 15 January: “If reorganisation is a genuine proposal—and the bar has to be high for that test—it is nonsense to have elections to bodies that simply will not exist. It is far better that we move at pace and create the new unitary councils and then hold elections at the earliest opportunity.”

In a letter to councils in December 2024, he referred to these as elections to a “shadow unitary council”, and said this was the “usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation”. Indeed, this was the case when Cumbria County Council was reorganised, for example. 

Local elections will be going ahead as planned in May in 14 county councils, eight unitary councils, the City of Doncaster and the Isles of Scilly, while six mayoral elections will also be taking place. So broad claims on social media that “2025 local elections [have been] cancelled” are potentially misleading, as we knew even before the government’s 5 February announcement that many definitely wouldn’t be.  

What is Labour’s plan for local government?

In its ‘English Devolution White Paper’, published in December, the government said it would “facilitate a programme of local government reorganisation for two-tier areas”, as well as unitary councils “where there is evidence of failure or where their size or boundaries may be hindering their ability to deliver sustainable and high-quality public services”. 

The government said unitary councils “can lead to better outcomes for residents, save significant money which can be reinvested in public services, and improve accountability with fewer politicians”. It said that “for most areas”, new unitary councils would cover a population of 500,000 or more. 

However some academics have raised questions about the benefits of large unitary councils over smaller ones, and some politicians have expressed concerns over how effectively large councils will be able to serve rural communities.

In his December 2024 letter to council leaders, Mr McMahon said he intended to ask for interim plans from councils by March 2025, and that the government “expect to deliver new unitary authorities in April 2027 and 2028”. 

How many voters are affected? 

Prior to the government’s 5 February announcement we saw various speculative claims about the number of voters who would be affected by elections being postponed. For example, a number of posts on social media claimed that nine million people could be left unable to vote due to council elections being postponed. Similarly, reporting before the deadline for applications passed, The Times said 15 councils who’d asked to take part in the programme cover “12.7 million people and 9.3 million registered voters”. 

However, now the government has confirmed nine councils will have their elections postponed, we know that a total of 5,667,000 people on the electoral register will be affected.  

Has this happened before?

Some on social media have previously suggested that if council elections are postponed in May, it would be the first time this has happened “since World War II”. But this isn’t correct.

Under the previous Conservative government, local elections in three county councils and three district councils that had been scheduled to take place in May 2021 were delayed until May 2022, as the councils moved to become unitary authorities. In 2019 and 2020 too, some district council elections were also cancelled due to reorganisation.

And local elections have been postponed for other reasons in the past, for example due to the Covid pandemic in 2020 and the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001.