New mayoral elections to be delayed in two areas of England

Source: MHCLG

Back in February, then Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced "ambitious" plans for six new areas of regional devolution, where councils would join forces to create combined authorities, led by new mayors.

The new Devolution Priority Programme areas were intended to provide "sweeping" powers for councils to fast-track growth in regions outside London and, at the time, the government said the new positions would be created "at pace", within a year.

Now, all six of those new devolution priority programme (DPP) areas have announced they will delay their mayoral elections, originally planned for May 2026.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) announced the first mayoral election in Cumbria had been pushed back a year in July, with councils saying combining the mayoral with planned local elections in 2027 would "save significant resources".

Cheshire & Warrington followed suit in September, pushing back its first mayoral election from to May 2027 to fit in with full council elections being held at the same time.

An MCHLG spokesperson said unitary authorities are now in place in Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington, which they said would "create simpler, more effective structures that can better support mayors' powers".

This will allow them to hold their inaugural mayoral elections in May 2027 and ministers are working with both areas to bring forward the legislation to create their mayoral authorities.

The remaining four areas were still on track to establish "stronger" unitary authorities in 2028, they said, before the inaugural mayoral elections are held in May 2028.

Fahnbulleh stressed that work was continuing behind the scenes to ensure that almost £200m each year could be shared by the six areas over the next 30 years for local priorities in areas like transport, planning and skills.

The MCHLG has announced that all six areas will get an additional £1m in the coming months, to help with the costs of establishing the new mayoral authorities, and will share £3m each as a minimum over the next three financial years.

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