Surrey Lib Dems fight move to delay county council elections to 2026

Surrey County Council held an extraordinary meeting on 08 January so that Members could debate the Leader of the Council’s decision to request the new Labour government’s agreement to push back the county elections by 12 months.

The move is linked to a complete reorganisation of Surrey’s two-tier system of local government which would result in the establishment of one or more unitary councils to replace Surrey County Council and its eleven district and borough councils.

While Members acknowledged and generally supported local government reorganisation in Surrey, many expressed concerns about the speed at which the transformation was expected to take place. The timescales set out in the recent White Paper would see the establishment of fully functioning unitary authorities in 2027. There are many issues to be resolved, and the County Council will need to collaborate with the district and borough councils to agree the new structure and bring those changes into force.

In responding to the Government’s invitation to join the fast-track programme of reorganisation, the Conservative administration will be requesting that the county council elections scheduled for May this year, be postponed until 2026.

Commenting after the meeting the Leader of Surrey Lib Dems, Paul Follows set out his reasons why he is against the delay.

“Members are coming to the end of their four-year term and clearly do not have a mandate from Surrey residents to make the incredibly important decisions on how Surrey should be governed in the years to come. Unitary authorities elsewhere in the country have taken longer to get fully established than this timeframe allows. We know that the current structure in Surrey is complex, and there are many unanswered questions as to how the new organisations will be set up and function. So how can we be sure that residents would be asked to go to the polls even in 2026? This is why we are convinced that the elections should be allowed to go ahead in May of this year. Although ultimately it will be up to the Secretary of State to make that call, the decision to request the postponement is the choice of the current Conservative administration and is one opposed by the Leaders of all Surrey’s district and borough councils.”