Harry Farley,Political correspondentand
Chas Geiger,Politics reporter
PA Media
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey previously criticised delays to elections
A Liberal Democrat-controlled council is to ask the government to postpone its local elections scheduled for 7 May, just over two weeks after party leader Sir Ed Davey argued such a move would breach human rights.
Cheltenham Borough Council in Gloucestershire has confirmed it will call for a 12-month delay, saying going ahead with the polls “does not seem responsible” given the costs involved.
Since 2002, half of the local authority’s councillors have been elected every two years. The last elections were in 2024.
Before Christmas, Sir Ed urged the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate after ministers suggested they would grant delays to local elections to councils that requested them.
In his letter, Sir Ed said: “Article 3 of the first protocol of the Human Rights Act spells out in black and white the right to free elections.
“Removing elections altogether, entirely unnecessarily, is in clear breach of this principle. Can you therefore confirm your plans to investigate the government’s cavalier approach to our elections?”
However, on Wednesday, Cllr Rowena Hay, the Lib Dem leader of Cheltenham Borough Council, said: “We have to take a balanced and pragmatic view as to how we can continue to prioritise our residents and deliver the high-quality services they rightly expect.”
In a statement, she also blamed “major under-funding of local government and the pressure to safely streamline local government across the county which comes at great cost”.
Cllr Hay said the Lib Dem group would always prefer to proceed with an election as planned.
But, she added, elections were “incredibly resource-intensive, and it does not seem responsible, in my view, to conduct an election with these concerns in mind, especially when those elected may not serve any more than 12 months”.
There are three models for council reorganisation being proposed in Gloucestershire.
They include the creation of a single unitary authority, an East/West split and the Greater Gloucester model.
Residents will be consulted in the spring before the government makes a decision, which is expected in the summer.
Based on the current timetable, elections are due to take place in May 2027, where new councillors would oversee the process of setting up the new system, as well as running the existing seven councils. Then full elections are scheduled for May 2028 when the new council/s will come into force.
Getty Images
Cheltenham Borough Council’s municipal offices
In December, Sir Ed warned that nearly 10 million people could see their democratic right to vote “ripped away” if some local elections in England were delayed.
But on Wednesday, a Lib Dem spokesperson said there were “specific circumstances in Cheltenham”.
“The councillors there have only been in place for 18 months as they had full council elections in 2024.
“That’s very different to Conservative councils like Essex, Hampshire and Sussex which last had elections in 2021, meaning their councillors will have served seven-year terms before facing re-election,” the spokesperson added.
In December, Reform UK Head of Policy Zia Yusuf told the BBC his party would try to secure a parliamentary vote to protest against such delays, which he called “extremely dangerous”.
The Conservatives have accused the government of being “scared of the voters”, but their leader, Kemi Badenoch, has indicated she will not stop Tory-led councils requesting a postponement.
Last February, the government said nine areas could postpone their 2025 elections until this year to help them prepare for the restructuring.
Ministers later asked all 63 councils affected by the reorganisation if they required a delay to the elections due this year.
In a statement released just before Parliament’s Christmas recess, Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said “multiple councils” had requested a postponement.