Local elections 2026: Has your council postponed its ballot?

A total of 30 local councils in England will cancel their elections in May, with the majority of them run by Labour.

Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told the Commons last week that he has granted permission for the councils in question to push back their ballots as part of a major shake-up to the way local authorities are run.

Reed had confirmed a list of 29 local authorities that would not proceed with their elections, but on Thursday he announced Pendle would also have its ballots delayed.

Of those that have been cancelled, 19 are councils held by Labour, five are Tory, and one is Lib Dem-run.

The others are of "no overall control", meaning no single political party holds the council as none gained a majority of seats.

Has your council cancelled its elections?

To find out if your local authority has delayed their local elections, type the name of your council in the search bar below to find out.

If you are unable to view the tracker on the device you are using, please click here.

Last month, ministers wrote to 63 councils that were scheduled to hold elections in May, offering the option to delay them because the restructure is taking longer than expected.

The move has sparked backlash - particularly as it's the second time local elections are being delayed - with opposition opponents accusing Labour of "running scared" from voters and compromising democracy, while Shadow Local Government Secretary James Cleverly accused the government of “putting pressure on councils” to cancel.

Reed told the Commons: “In areas where elections are postponed, existing councillors will have their terms extended for a short period.

“Once the new unitary councils are agreed, we will hold elections to them in 2027.”

He added: “To those who say we’ve cancelled all the elections, we haven’t... I’ve asked, I’ve listened, and I’ve acted.

“No messing about, no playing politics, just getting on with the job of making local government work better for local people.”

“I have carefully considered arguments made about capacity, reorganisation and democracy, and I’m grateful to everyone who took the time to express their views,” he said.

Some elections were delayed last year until May 2026 as part of Labour's overhaul to local government. However, the government announced before Christmas that some elections may be delayed yet again, pushing them to 2027.

Ministers are planning to abolish the two-tier system of district and county councils in the hopes of making the system more streamlined and offering better services to voters.

The selected 63 councils were informed that ministers would authorise the postponements if there were "genuine concerns" about the ability to deliver elections alongside the restructuring plans.

But elections will go ahead after a year’s delay for voters in some areas, including to elect councillors to Essex County Council, Hampshire County Council and the Isle of Wight Council.

It had already been confirmed that some mayoral elections won’t take place until 2028. They are Greater Essex, Brighton, Norfolk, Sussex, Hampshire and the Solent, and Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Tory shadow housing, communities and local government secretary accused Reed of trying to score a “political gotcha” and of pressuring councils to cancel because of Labour's current poor polling.

Cleverly asked Reed in the Commons: “Why did he write to councils asking them to ask him to cancel the elections? And why, when they didn’t give him the answer that he wanted, did he write to them again asking basically the same question?

"Why was his department putting pressure on councils to ask for cancelations as late as last night?

“I know why. He knows why. We all know why. It’s because he wants to shift the blame. He wants to say ‘I didn’t make them do it’. He wants a political gotcha.”

Reed replied that he had “imposed nothing” and said he had tried to secure a “locally-led approach”.

He had previously accused the Conservatives of having “sat back and ignored this problem” of some doubling-up in local government, in places where taxpayers are funding “two sets of councillors, two sets of chief executives and two sets of financial directors”.

Florence Eshalomi, who chairs the Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, warned that “democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out” during the reorganisation process.

The Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green said: “Our councils should not have to face choosing between frontline services or elections.

“Democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out, and every council should have the resources to run local elections.”

From Westminster to Washington DC - our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below...