Council to request May elections are cancelled

Basildon Council will ask the government to cancel this May's local elections in the borough.

People queued in the rain to hear the Labour-led council tell a meeting it wanted to focus on delivering local government reorganisation (LGR) in Essex instead.

Basildon and 14 other councils are due to be abolished in 2028 and replaced with somewhere between three and five all-purpose unitary authorities.

Opposition groups have criticised council leader Gavin Callaghan, including Conservative group leader Andy Barnes, who said the decision made it a "dark day for democracy".

Fourteen out of the council's 42 seats were due to be decided at an election in May.

A report served to the meeting, on Thursday night, said holding those elections would dramatically reduce time available to staff and thus "undermine" the authority's ability to meet government deadlines.

Callaghan said the end result was going to bring "one big, powerful council".

"We are removing the inefficiency, the bureaucracy, the duplication that exists every single day with the two-tier system," he added.

About £1m has been spent on LGR across Essex so far, with central government covering half the cost.

Local Government Minister Alison McGovern wrote to 63 English councils on 18 December, asking if they had capacity to deliver the shake-up and also hold elections in May.

Callaghan has now sent Basildon's submission to Local Government Secretary Steve Reed.

Callaghan told the BBC: "We are talking about life and death decisions. We can't get it wrong.

"Children, vulnerable adults, disabled people - they are counting on their council to be able to reorganise and safely transition to these new authorities."

He pointed out that local elections in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire were cancelled when LGR happened there under the last Conservative government.

However, Barnes said it was "a dark day for democracy and an absolutely disgraceful decision".

People from a packed public gallery shouted "shame" at times during what became a heated and tense meeting.

Across the county, Colchester City Council has passed a motion to say the elections should go ahead.

Southend-on-Sea City Council and Epping Forest District Council have also outlined their intention to hold the polls.

Reform UK councillor Sam Journet said after the meeting there should be no more than three Essex councils created under LGR.

Reed is expected to announce which council areas may have their polls cancelled later in January.

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