The District Councils’ Network has warned that millions of voters will be ‘deprived of their local democracy’ due to plans to postpone some county council elections.
Upper-tier councils must tell the Government by today (10 January) if they wish to reorganise local government in their regions to pursue devolution at an ‘ambitious’ pace, and said it was minded to delay May’s elections in these areas to enable this.
It is expected that more than 10 county councils will submit a request to the Government.
DCN chairman Sam Chapman-Allen said: ‘The cancellation of the local elections comes after the Government’s general election manifesto neglected to mention that it sought to take power away from communities by replacing district councils with mega councils.
‘Democracy is being sidelined with the local electorate being deprived of any democratic opportunity to give their verdict on a major reorganisation that will have far-reaching repercussions for the destiny of thousands of English towns and villages.’
In a statement, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: ‘Elections this year will be going ahead as planned and we will only consider postponing elections for areas where the council concerned have requested it, and where after careful consideration, it will help an area to deliver reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeline.’
The department said it would review all requests after today’s deadline and then ‘provide an update to the affected areas in the near future’.
