Sussex Devolution

Key Facts about why the May 2025 local elections been postponed 12 months

Some commentators are making up their own reasons for the postponement of the May 2025 elections. Those accusations are not true and will not be repeated here - they were made suit a particular political narrative rather than giving the actual reasons behind the decision - which was made by the Government.
The decision to postpone the election was driven by the legal requirement to conduct a public consultation before reorganizing local government arrangements. Listed below are the main considerations.
1. The public consultation is supposed to start in mid February.
2. ⁠Public consultation can not take place during the pre-election period (formerly called "purdah").
3. ⁠The public consultation would overlap with the pre-election period for the May 2025 elections.
4. ⁠Therefore, to comply with election law, if the May 2025 elections were not postponed, public consultation would need to start after the May elections.
5. ⁠This would put back the devolution process by one year.
6. ⁠Rather than delay the devolution process by one year, the elections need to be postponed to allow public consultation.

The decision whether to postpone the election was made by the Government. It means delaying for one or, depending on progress with reorganisation plans, two years, the opportunity for the local electorate to determine the make-up of the Council.
This needs to be weighed against the significant resource and member involvement which will be needed to manage the demands of planning and delivering devolution alongside reorganisation with potential Mayoral elections in 2026 and shadow authority elections in 2027.
It would prove significantly more challenging to successfully complete such an ambitious project while at the same time holding County elections and inducting new members who would be standing for election again less than two years following their election.