Elections for a newly-created mayor for Hampshire and the Solent has been delayed until 2028.
The government announced today that it was postponing the polls for the region, and three others, because more time is needed to reorganise local government in these areas. Elections were due to be held in next year but will not now happen until May 2028.
It means that elections for all six regions prioritised for devolution – ‘Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) areas’ – will now be delayed after mayoral elections for Cumbria and Cheshire & Warrington were pushed back to 2027 earlier this year.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed said: “The Government is also minded to hold the inaugural mayoral elections for Sussex and Brighton, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Greater Essex in May 2028, with areas completing the local government reorganisation process before Mayors take office.
“This is because devolution is strongest when it is built on strong foundations, therefore moving forward we will ensure strong unitary structures are in place before areas take on mayoral devolution.”
Under the shake-up, groups of unitary authorities will be headed up by new mayors who will have more funding and powers to run their area with the aim of giving greater power to local communities.
Here, KPPC Planning Director Adam Bennett urges councils to waste no time in pressing on with Local Plan Making – and warned that the prospect of councils not having an up-to-date plan for years to come and continuing to plan speculatively for development was of ‘deep concern’.
“The delay to the planned Regional Devolution Deals means that the various local authorities now need to get back to looking seriously at progressing Local Plans and planning to meet the development needs of their individual authority areas in the short term.
“The Government have made clear through the NPPF and policy statements that Local Authorities need to plan to meet their needs for development; most pressingly housing needs, in full, and despite recent announcements about the ‘Duty to Co-operate’ being withdrawn from the basket of issues that need to be navigated by Authorities, this does not mean that they do not need to work and correspond with their neighbours to come up with practical solutions for meeting development needs where these cannot be met within an Authority’s own plan area.
“There may no longer be a ‘Duty to Cooperate’ but there is still very clearly a ‘Requirement to Cooperate’ in order to ensure that needs are addressed in full.
“There has been significant uncertainty generated by the proposed local authority reorganisation whether Authorities would progress plans until May 2026, and then suddenly stop work on them at the point that reorganisation was formally agreed and being progressed, throwing in to jeopardy all of the work undertaken up until this point; particularly if a change in political administration were to occur.
“For some of these authorities, the housing need position is already critical and there is no plan in place to meet this need.
“The prospect of not having an up to date plan for years to come and continuing to plan speculatively for development is of deep concern.
“The moving of the goal posts again being presented by the Government on this issue is certainly not helpful, but it may mean that Authorities in the affected areas knuckle down and get Local Plans in place in the short term.
“I note this does not change the fact that Local Elections are still planned in many of these areas for May 2026, so there are still prospects of uncomfortable shakeups in the local political landscape.
“We also have on the horizon the NPPF update later this month. Nothing like keeping us all guessing!”
