Two more East Lancashire councils to ask government to scrap local elections

Two more East Lancashire councils are to ask the government to scrap this year’s local elections.

Last night, Burnley Council bosses decided to ‘reluctantly’ ask ministers to postpone next May’s borough polls.

And on Monday, Pendle’s Full Council defied its Liberal Democrat leader, David Whipp, to do the same.

The decisions were based on the cost and capacity of town hall officials to run the elections when local government reorganisation (LGR) will see both councils abolished to make way for a larger all-purpose unitary authority as part of Lancashire devolution.

This means they join Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Preston and Chorley in calling for the local elections to be scrapped.

In December local government minister Alison McGovern asked the seven Lancashire councils due to have polls on May 7 whether they should go ahead with elections for ‘shadow’ versions of the new, larger councils – the geography of which is to be decided next year – to be held in May 2027, just under a year before they come into being.

At a meeting of Burnley Council’s executive on Tuesday night its leader Cllr Afrasiab Anwar proposed ‘reluctantly’ that the May 7 elections should be scrapped.

His senior colleagues endorsed sending a letter asking for the postponement to Ms McGovern despite a plea from the authority’s Reform UK group leader Cllr Alan Hosker and a recommendation from an earlier meeting of its scrutiny committee to go ahead with the polls.

Burnley Independents Group boss Cllr Anwar said: “We reluctantly support the postponement of Burnley’s 2026 local election.

“The government’s approach to the potential postponement of elections has come late in the process, leaving councils with little time to plan or respond meaningfully.

“Four out of the seven Lancashire districts affected by LGR have already requested a postponement on reasons of “capacity” pre-empting the minister’s announcement.

“Pendle council has now followed suit.

“If the Secretary of State is prepared to grant postponements on the grounds of insufficient capacity for the majority of Lancashire councils that have local elections in May 2026 (namely Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Preston), then Burnley’s elections should also be postponed to ensure consistency of approach across the region.

“To do otherwise would be to ignore the very real and shared pressures we are all facing.

“This has been sprung on us. We have been thrown under a bus. This decision should be made by government not councils.”

Cllr Hosker told the executive: “People are entitled to a vote. This is about democracy.”

The earlier scrutiny committee meeting voted to advise the executive that it should reject any move to scrap the elections in a resolution proposed by Labour’s Alun Lewis.

Former Liberal Democrat MP Cllr Gordon Birtwistle said they should be postponed and the £177,000 cost saved used to cut council tax by two per cent rather than elect what would become ‘a lame duck council’.

Committee chairman and Conservative group leader Cllr Jamie McGowan said he personally favoured the polls going ahead.

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Cllr Whipp, who had recommended to Pendle’s Full Council that the elections should go ahead, said: “I am desperately disappointed by this local decision.

“I just hope against hope that the government will not go ahead with destroying some of the foundations of our democratic system.”

Mick Waddington, chairman of Reform UK Pendle and Clitheroe, said: “This is the kind of thing you expect in failing states, not in a British borough council. This is not leadership. It is cowardice.”

Rossendale and Ribble Valley borough and Lancashire County Council have no elections planned for this year.