Is political upheaval coming in Sussex this May?

Local elections in Sussex this May have the potential to bring sweeping political change.

Almost 1.5m voters will elect county councillors to run East and West Sussex for the first time in five years after elections due to be held last year were postponed.

There will also be partial elections for borough and district councillors in Adur, Worthing, Crawley and Hastings.

In the coming weeks we will be reporting on the issues that matter to you, but first we look at why this year's elections are so significant.

The Conservatives have run East Sussex County Council for 25 years and West Sussex County Council for 29 years.

The last time residents got to vote for their county councillors was in May 2021, when Boris Johnson was prime minister and the Tories were making big political gains.

Back then, we were coming out of Covid lockdown.

Reform UK was a fledgling party recently started by businessman Richard Tice and Nigel Farage had disappeared in political retirement.

Five years later - the political landscape has shifted unrecognisably.

Elections were called off last year, meaning the apparent success of Reform UK has not been tested among Sussex voters.

The party saw Aidan Fisher, their first county councillor, elected in an East Sussex by-election in November.

Fisher joined one East Sussex and four West Sussex county councillors who have defected to Reform UK having been elected as Conservatives.

Across Sussex, the Conservatives lost half of their seats in the 2024 general election and they no longer control any of the 12 borough or district councils.

The Liberal Democrats hold significant political power, serving as the opposition on both East and West Sussex county councils.

They lead Arun, Chichester, Horsham, Mid Sussex, Eastbourne councils.

They gained MPs in Chichester and Horsham which had been Tory strongholds for more than a century, and in Mid Sussex where a Conservative has represented the constituency for it's 50 year history.

The Green Party has been gaining power too, particularly in East Sussex where they are now the third largest party on the county council and run councils in Lewes, Wealden and Hastings.

Over the coming weeks we could see unprecedented collaboration between the left-wing Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour members to try to counteract the popularity of Reform UK.

On the road to their landslide general election victory, Labour won control of Worthing Borough Council in 2022 and Adur District Council in 2024.

They have held Crawley Borough Council since 2014, but their leadership of Hastings Borough Council fell apart shortly before their last election in 2024 after the local party fractured due to an internal row and the Green Party took control.

The last two years has seen Labour's political popularity decline, leaving their control of Worthing, Adur and even Crawley under threat.

The apparent rise in popularity of Reform UK and the Greens could destabilise traditional voting trends in a way we have never seen here before.

For any winners in this year's local elections, victory will be short-lived.

East and West Sussex County Council and all 12 of the borough and district councils are set to be abolished in two year's time.

Plans to cancel this year's local elections to allow for local government reorganisation were abandoned.

In May 2027, we will vote for new unitary authorities, which will run all local services, replacing our current two-tier system.

After a 'shadow year' to handover operations, our current councils will be dissolved in spring 2028.

At the same time, we will elect the first mayor of Sussex and Brighton.

Brighton and Hove, which is already a unitary authority, is not due to have any elections this year, but will instead got to the polls to elect city councillors in May 2027.

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