The Government has today announced the delay of mayoral elections in Devolution Priority Programme areas from 2026 to 2028.

This will impact on 7.5 million people in Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and East and West Sussex.

In response, Cllr Richard Wright, Chair of the District Councils’ Network, said:

“Today’s decision to delay mayoral elections by two years is a backwards step that perpetuates England’s enduring power imbalance. It’s completely unacceptable that 28 million people living in non-metropolitan areas continue to be deprived of the mayoral devolution now given to all urban areas.

“If mayoral devolution isn’t taking place even in areas on the so-called ‘Devolution Priority Programme’, it’s clearly not much of priority.

“While we’re told the delayed mayoral elections will now take place in 2028, in an era of political instability and broken Government promises, the residents of many places will be left wondering if they’ll ever benefit from devolution.

“Ministers told us that the reorganisation of local government was necessary to bring about devolution. District councils have kept their side of the bargain by working flat-out to design innovative and bold plans to rethink local government and it’s totally out of order that the Government has failed to honour its promise in return.

“The fact that this announcement comes less than a week after around 100 district councils hit a Government-imposed deadline to submit reorganisation proposals, anticipating the prize of devolution as a result, adds to a sense of lost trust.”