Local government reorganisation: East Sussex County Council requests local elections be suspended

On Thursday (January 9), East Sussex County Council’s cabinet agreed to write to the government and express the council’s commitment to aid in the creation of the new unitary and mayoral authorities set out in a recent policy announcement.

This will involve applying to join the government’s Devolution Priority Programme — a scheme intended to fast track the establishment of mayoral authorities. Locally, this is expected to see a new mayor, who would represent the entirety of Sussex, take on devolved powers from central government.

The council also committed to be involved in developing a proposal for unitary council in East Sussex.

Cabinet members also agreed to ‘invite’ the government to postpone the county council elections due to take place in May — a move critics characterised as an outright ‘cancellation’.

Conservative council leader Keith Glazier defended the request, arguing the authority would not have the staffing and resources to run elections and do the work necessary to be part of the first wave of councils to transition to the new system — a position he argued would result in the best outcome for the county.

He said: “The people of East Sussex deserve the best that is on offer. Whether we like it or not, the political mandate was given to the current government in July of last year and they have set out their way of dealing and they are very clear that this will happen before the end of this term. The bottom line is that we can be in there shaping it or we can be falling behind.”

The council’s opposition parties took a different view, with Labour, Liberal Democrat and Greens all arguing the elections should go ahead. These arguments were made plain during an extraordinary full council meeting, which took place immediately before the cabinet meeting.

During this meeting, councillors debated a motion calling on the council to publicly state a view that May’s elections should go ahead.

Green Party councillor Wendy Maples said:“Denying residents a vote is a very serious decision. It says ‘I know better’. I have been in this role for three-and-a-half years and what I can say is that you don’t. You don’t know better, our residents do.”

Liberal Democrat Kathryn Field said: “We have elections scheduled for May. We are elected for four years; the public knows that and the public knows that they have a right, every four years, to express their view on what is being done on their behalf by their councillors.

“I accept that we have to go ahead [with the reorganisation], but we should give the public the right to have their say on what we are going to be doing, because we are doing it for them on their behalf.”

However, the motion was voted down with the council’s three Independent members — Charles Clark and former Conservatives Abul Azad and Sam Adeniji — voting alongside the Conservative group to defeat the proposal 23 votes to 21.

During the wider debate, several opposition councillors took aim at the government.

Liberal Democrat Stephen Holt said: “It is disturbing that any authority is expected to respond to government proposals that were published just before Christmas 10 days into the new year.

“With the financial struggles of this authority replicated across the country in many other authorities, tackling the financial deficit whilst protecting services should be the priority.”

He added: “In short, this is a rushed process forced upon us by national government and as a result has had little consultation with residents and key stakeholders. This is wrong.”

This view was disputed by Labour’s Godfrey Daniel, who argued a unitary authority would serve residents better than the current two-tier system.

Conservative cabinet members agreed to write to the government on three measures.

This includes bidding to be part of the government’s Devolution Priority Programme on the basis of creating a new mayoral combined authority for the Sussex area. This proposal also saw support from West Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove Council during similar meetings held the same day.