The government has opened the door to the cancellation of next year’s local elections in the seven Lancashire areas where they are due to be held.
It comes just a fortnight after a minister insisted that all of England’s scheduled local authority votes would be going ahead unless there were “extenuating circumstances” to justify them being scrapped.
That statement had appeared to put paid to calls from Preston, Chorley, Blackburn with Darwen and Hyndburn councils last month for the plug to be pulled on their polls, set for May 2026.
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The four Labour-run authorities had argued that the elections would potentially disrupt a government-ordered shake-up that will see all 15 of Lancashire’s main councils axed and replaced with a handful of new ones in 2028 – and that they were also a waste of money because of the forthcoming overhaul.
Of the three other Lancashire authorities with votes next year, Pendle Council had said they should go ahead, while neither West Lancashire nor Burnley had requested they be stopped.
However, all seven are amongst 63 councils nationwide that have now been invited by ministers to make the case for cancellation, given that they are all going through the same local government reorganisation (LGR) process over the next three years.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands that even those authorities, like the four in Lancashire, that have already formally made such a request will have to do so again – specifically setting out any limits they believe exist in their capacity both to stage elections and prepare for the transfer of power to their replacements.
Irrespective of whether any of the 2026 polls are axed, elections to so-called ‘shadow’ versions of the new, larger councils – the geographical shape of which is to be decided next year – will be held in May 2027, just under a year before they come into being the following April.
Local government minister Alison McGovern said she had “listened to councils who’ve told us of the challenges they face reorganising while preparing for resource-intensive elections for areas which may shortly be abolished”.
Reform UK in Lancashire condemned what it has described as “a cynical attempt to deny democracy”.
However, the leaders of the councils that had already sought permission to ditch next year’s votes – for what would be a third of the seats on their authorities – welcomed the government’s new-found willingness to agree.
Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown – who was criticised by opposition groups on the authority last month for seeking cancellation – said the resources that would be spent delivering the elections could be better deployed on ensuring an “efficient” handover to the authority’s replacement.
“From next summer, there’s going to be work [starting on] how the services are reorganised into this new authority – and considering we’ve got to do a lot of it in 12 months, it’s going to be extremely resource intensive.
“The city council’s budget of £20m compares to £400 million for the new council – so the implications for residents and the community are very significant. Obviously, we want to get it right and then we will have elections in 2027 – and I’m looking forward to those very much, because there will be competing visions about what a council [the size of the new one] could do.” Cllr Brown said.
Phil Riley, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, said the government had recognised that there is “a huge amount of work involved in LGR and they don’t want that compromising by other extraneous activities”.
He added that, as one of the area’s top-tier authorities, his council’s officers were also preparing for a busy year in which the Lancashire Combined County Authority (LCCA) would take on additional devolved responsibilities.
“We’ve also got to continue delivering local services, so we are absolutely not short of things to do – and having elections for a body which is going to disappear is, in my view, unnecessary,” Cllr Riley said.
Chorley Council leader Alistair Bradley said last month that holding elections in the midst of LGR risked derailing the process altogether, because of the political instability any changes of control could inject into the proceedings.
Speaking about the government’s shift in stance since then, he said ministers had clearly been in listening mode.
“Elections in the middle of [LGR] will just create more delay. We’re better off focusing on where we need to go than where we are now, because our residents are crying out for more efficient local government.
“We don’t want to cancel elections – it’s democracy and, as politicians, that’s what we’re about.
“But we want to do what’s best for the public of Chorley and, in our view, that is not to hold elections before a major change, but to hold them after we know what that change is going to be,” said Cllr Bradley, who stressed that it was mathematically impossible for his ruling group to lose control in Chorley in any case, even if they lost all of the seats up for grabs.
He also hit out at those whom he suspects are pushing for the elections to go ahead for reasons other than a principled belief.
“I’m personally fed up with politicians delaying what’s best for Lancashire for their own self-interest,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pendle Council’s Liberal Democrat leader David Whipp – who heads a coalition with the independents and Green Party – said he will be “strongly arguing” for the elections to proceed when the authority discusses the matter in the new year.
“Residents should not be denied democracy,” he said.
West Lancashire Borough Council’s Labour leader Yvonne Gagen told the LDRS that any changes to elections “should be a government decision and not a council [one]”.
The LDRS also approached the leaders of Hyndburn and Burnley councils for comment on the government’s invitation. While Hyndburn made an official request for cancellation last month, Burnley leader Afrasiab Anwar has previously called for clarity one way or the other – and demanded “cogent reasons” for any change in the government’s position.
The Reform UK leader of Lancashire County Council, Stephen Atkinson – whose party took control of the authority in May at local elections which could themselves have been cancelled had the previous Conservative administration at County Hall chosen to request that – said he believed the “huge changes” that his party’s victory heralded were the unspoken motive behind the government’s offer to consider cancelling next year’s polls.
“In my opinion, the government are running scared.
“You lose democracy one small step at a time. These fundamental rights that we have…they’re being removed [and that wasn’t] in the Labour manifesto.
“This is a dangerous time because people feel very frustrated that their voices are not being heard,” County Cllr Atkinson said during an appearance on GB News.
Government’s election u-turn
Speaking in Parliament on 4th December, devolution minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said: “Local elections will go ahead in 2026 – that has been and continues to be our position.”
Her statement came against the backdrop of the fact that both the current Labour government and the previous Conservative administration have approved election cancellations in parts of the country that have been through the type of council overhaul now taking place in Lancashire – and seemed designed to end speculation that the same could happen next year.
However, Ms. Fahnbulleh did drop in a caveat: “We are a responsible government, so if there are extenuating circumstances on the ground in particular councils, we will have that conversation with them,” she said.
As reorganisation is happening in 21 counties across England, it appeared that the government was going to require a case that went beyond that bare fact in order to justify scrapping the planned votes.
Yet just two weeks later, local government minister Alison McGovern turned that logic on its head, offering councils the chance to pitch for the cancellation of the polls in their areas solely because those elections would overlap with the shake-up of the local authority landscape in that patch – and the capacity problems that she said could be caused as a result.
“Several [councils] have submitted requests to postpone elections, so it is therefore right we let them have their say so they can focus their time and energy on providing vital services while planning for reorganisation,” Ms. McGovern said.
“Our goal is to create new councils who can improve services for residents and it is only right that we listen to councils.”
What happens if Lancashire’s local elections are cancelled?
The seven councils where votes are scheduled to take place next May elect their memberships in thirds across three years in every four – with councillors taking on four-year terms.
That means the members whose seats are up for election in 2026 were voted in back in 2022.
If the polls do not go ahead as planned next year, those councillors would remain in post until the authorities on which they sit are abolished on 31st March, 2028 – extending their period in office by almost two years, without gaining a fresh mandate from the electorate.
Those individuals would, however, be free to resign at any point, meaning a by-election would be held to fill the vacancy.
Councillors elected in 2023 are already due to serve an extra year as the elections due to be held at the existing authorities in 2027 will instead be replaced with polls to install members of the new authorities that launch in April 2028, but which will exist in ‘shadow’ form for 11 months beforehand.
That will also affect the seven other Lancashire district and unitary councils – Blackpool, Fylde, Lancaster, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble and Wyre – which hold ‘all-out’ elections every four years to elect all their members in one go. Those votes would ordinarily be scheduled for 2027 on the usual cycle, but will not be going ahead as a result of the overhaul.
Lancashire County Council also elects only once every four years, but held its poll this year – and so will be unaffected by any changes to elections in 2026 and 2027.
‘No legitimate reason for cancelling elections’
The prospect – and the very “principle” of local election cancellations has been condemned by the Electoral Commission.
Chief executive Vijay Rangarajan said: “We note the government statement in Parliament on 18th December inviting councils to raise capacity concerns and seek to postpone elections in May 2026.
“We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should as a rule go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances. We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025.
“Decisions on any postponements will not be taken until mid-January, less than three months before the scheduled May 2026 elections are due to begin. This uncertainty is unprecedented and will not help campaigners and administrators who need time to prepare for their important roles. We very much recognise the pressures on local government, but these late changes do not help administrators. Parties and candidates have already been preparing for some time, and will be understandably concerned.
“As a matter of principle, we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections. Extending existing mandates risks affecting the legitimacy of local decision making and damaging public confidence. There is a clear conflict of interest in asking existing councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters.
“Voters must have a say on those that represent them at local government. We will work with the UK Government on these plans so that we can support voters, campaigners, parties and administrators who have been preparing for these elections.”
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