The government has agreed Exeter City Council can scrap its May 2026 local elections, meaning residents cannot vote for new councillors this year.
The city council claimed cancelling elections would save the authority more than a quarter of a million pounds, sparking opposition over the ‘undemocratic’ move.
However, Exeter city councillors who feared they wouldn’t have the resources to run local elections this year had been offered a helping hand by their colleagues at County Hall, writes local democracy reporter Guy Henderson.
Opposition councillors say Labour’s stance is ‘undemocratic’, and denies local people their right to decide on their councillors. Labour has also been accused by political opponents of ‘running scared’ after doing badly in local elections last year.
They had written their own letter to the minister urging her not to scrap the May polls.
And the Liberal Democrat leader of Devon County Council recently weighed in with his own letter, offering County Hall’s help.
Cllr Julian Brazil (Kingsbridge) said he has ‘serious concerns’ over cancelling the elections.
“Cancelling scheduled elections for this reason would be a mistaken course of action and would carry significant democratic, legal and practical risks,” he wrote.
“We have offered to the leader of the city council a commitment to provide resources and capacity from our democratic services to support the elections to go ahead, and understand that similar offers of support and capacity from Devon district councils may be forthcoming too.”
Teignbridge Council leader Richard Keeling (Lib Dem, Chudleigh) has already made a similar offer.
Cllr Brazil said that if the timetable for local government reorganisation was too challenging, it would be better to extend it rather than cancel elections.
“This would allow reform to proceed in a managed and sustainable way while preserving democratic legitimacy throughout the process,” he added.
The government this week confirmed that Exeter’s 2026 city council elections can be abandoned,.
The city council’s Labour administration had asked the Secretary of State for local government Steve Reed for permission to call off the polls in May for 13 of the 39 seats on the local authority.
Leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) had argued that the quarter of a million pounds cost of the elections would be better spent preparing for local government reorganisation. He also said valuable officer time would be better used in the preparations, rather than organising elections for a council that will cease to exist under the government’s reorganisation plans.
Opponents, however, said the move was undemocratic, while some accused Labour of ‘running scared’ from the polls, having done badly in the county council elections last year.
Green Party supporters are pictured here protesting outside Exeter Guildhall.
Photo: Exeter Green Party.
Labour councillors voted for Cllr Bialyk to write to the Secretary of State, setting out his view that the 2026 elections should be called off. Now Mr Reed has confirmed that they will be.
Exeter is one of 29 councils to have been given permission to shelve their elections for a year.
In his letter Mr Reed says: “This decision follows a comprehensive consideration of all the evidence available to me. I have listened to concerns regarding the resource pressures of running intensive elections for councils proposed for abolition shortly thereafter.
“By delaying these elections, I am confident that we will be releasing essential capacity within councils to allow your teams to focus their full energy on the complex reorganisation process, while also addressing concerns regarding the cost of holding elections for bodies that will soon cease to exist.”
Town and parish council elections will go ahead as planned.
