Election cancellation call from Preston Council

Preston City Council has become the latest authority in Lancashire to push for the cancellation of next year’s local elections – prompting opposition politicians to cry foul.

The Labour council’s cabinet voted to ask the government for permission to pull the plug on the May 2026 poll in the city, because of a forthcoming shake-up that will see the city council – and the 14 other main local authorities in Lancashire – all axed.

Preston leader Matthew Brown said he believed the move was “proportionate” given that a vote for so-called ‘shadow’ versions of the replacement councils being created as part of the government-ordered overhaul will be held in May 2027, a year ahead of the new bodies formally coming into being.

However, opposition leaders have condemned the decision to make the request, branding it an affront to democracy – and claiming it is politically motivated amid Labour fears of losing seats.

A third of the 48 seats on the city council – one in each ward, all of which have been occupied since the last equivalent election in 2022 – would ordinarily be up for grabs next year.

Out of the seven council areas due to hold elections in May 2026, three – Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley and Hyndburn – have already said they will ask for their cancellation. Reasons cited include ensuring “stability” during the transition to the new larger, replacement authorities, as well as potential cost savings.

Cllr Brown made a similar argument at the cabinet meeting where the Preston decision was taken – but acknowledged that there had been “divergent views” amongst his ruling group before it had agreed on a collective position.

“The reason for [the cancellation request] is that we’re taking [the reorganisation process] extremely seriously.

“We’ve been involved in negotiations for a significant period of time. Those negotiations have involved the 15 [Lancashire council] leaders, MPs [and] ministers .

“It’s the biggest change that we are going to have in local government since 1974 – [and] obviously we want to make sure that the process…is efficient …and we think it’s proportionate to request that elections be suspended just for the one year,” said Cllr Brown. He added that the estimated £109,000 expected to be saved by not staging the poll could be “spent on the community” instead.

However, speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) Liberal Democrat opposition group leader John Potter said it was “disappointing to see Preston Labour requesting to cancel the 2026 elections”, which would be the last ever to the city authority in its current form

“The local Lib Dems, as the second-biggest party – and the only other group that can mathematically overtake Labour – were excited to bring change to Preston after so many years of chaos and bad decisions by Labour.

“Cancelling elections should only happen in extreme circumstances. Labour losing power does not qualify.

“Councillors elected in 2022 will now get a six-year term [in office] which is ridiculous.

“I don’t believe the savings will happen either. Labour’s shambolic infighting has already cost taxpayers £30,000 for the Ashton by-election. I think we’ll see a raft of existing councillors calling it a day before 2028 if their track record is anything to go by.”

Meanwhile, Conservative group leader Harry Landless said that although the opinion polls suggested that the local elections next spring would not “favour” his party, his instinct was that “they should go ahead”.

“I’ve just got a feeling that Labour don’t want them, because they think they will get an absolute trouncing – not by us, but by the Liberal Democrats and Reform,” Cllr Landless said. However, he added that had there been a full council vote on the issue, his group would have abstained.

The sole Reform UK member on the city council, Stephen Thompson, accused Labour in Preston of “running away from a May 2026 election as they don’t like the threat of losing to Reform”.

He added: “I thought the Labour group liked an opportunity to demonstrate democracy in action – I guess this only counts if they are winning in the polls.”

Cllr Brown told the LDRS that preparation for transferring responsibilities from the city council to the new authority for Preston “will start to be scoped out from next summer, with transformation boards [being established] to begin that process”.

“If there is any slippage from the current timetable, we will be open to reviewing [the election] decision,” he explained.

The current and previous governments have cancelled local elections in other parts of the country that have previously gone through reorganisation.

City council cabinet member for community wealth building, Valerie Wise, stressed that such decisions were “nothing new”, recalling her own term on the long-defunct Greater London Authority being extended after elections were ditched ahead of its abolition back in the mid-1980s.

She said that in view of the fact that the councillors elected to the shadow incarnations of Lancashire’s new local authorities would become fully-fledged members in 2028 and would then serve until 2032, it “seems madness” for Preston’s elections to go ahead next year for a much shorter term.

Preston City Council chief executive Adrian Phillips told the cabinet meeting that the authority would retain responsibility for its “business and services” all the way through until its last day of operation, scheduled to be 31st March, 2028.

However, he said that “joint committees” would be established with the shadow authority into which Preston is to be subsumed in order to enable a “safe and legal transfer”.

The wider area to be covered by the new council for Preston will be decided by the government next summer. Ministers will this week receive five different suggestions from Lancashire’s 15 existing councils about the number and shape of the authorities that should replace them. Preston’s proposal is for a merger with Lancaster and Ribble Valley, which was also agreed at the same cabinet meeting.

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government has previously told the LDRS that the “starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise”.