Map shows which places are having their elections pushed back for a year

Elections owed to instrumentality spot successful May volition beryllium delayed by a twelvemonth successful 9 parts of England portion their section governments are restructured, Angela Rayner has announced.

The 9 areas are among 21 crossed England that are governed by some region and territory councils – a strategy the government wants to simplify.

That means combining them into what are called unitary authorities, a strategy already successful spot successful 62 parts of the country.

Rayner argued the determination would ‘unlock devolution and present reorganisation’ for the assembly areas, which were selected from a database of 18 that had requested the change.

But due to the fact that the authorities is ‘not successful the concern of holding elections to bodies that won’t exist’, she said, the votes scheduled successful those areas for this outpouring volition beryllium delayed until May 2026.

The 9 affected areas, each located either successful East Anglia oregon the southbound of England, are East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex, Thurrock, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey.

Rayner said holding elections successful these places would beryllium ‘an costly and irresponsible discarded of taxpayers’ money’.

The lawman premier minister, who besides acts arsenic section authorities secretary, added: ‘The government’s starting constituent is for each elections to spell up unless there’s a beardown justification for postponement, and the barroom is high, and rightly so.

‘I americium lone agreeing to fractional of the requests that were made. After cautious consideration, I person lone agreed to postpone elections successful places wherever this is cardinal to our manifesto committedness to present devolution.’

Shadow section authorities caput Kevin Hollinrake said Rayner was creating ‘a caller tier of Orwellian-sounding, strategical authorities which are person to her and person to Whitehall’.

He continued: ‘These are for her to usage arsenic a pawn to instrumentality this government’s profoundly unpopular socialist agenda.

‘The world is that this is delegation, not devolution. Not devolution but a wide centralisation.’

The lawman PM besides announced six caller areas that volition elite mayors for the archetypal clip successful May 2026, aft the East Midlands and York and North Yorkshire elected their archetypal mayors past year.

They are Cumbria, Cheshire & Warrington, Norfolk & Suffolk, Greater Essex, Sussex & Brighton and Hampshire & Solent.

Get successful interaction with our quality squad by emailing america astatine webnews@metro.co.uk.

For much stories similar this, check our quality page.

MORE: Up to 700 workplace shops could permanently adjacent putting thousands of jobs astatine risk

MORE: Keir abandoned email code due to the fact that it was ‘dangerously obvious’ to hackers

MORE: Rough sleeping ‘almost ended’ implicit lockdown – what has gone incorrect since?