Is 2026 still the year power moves out of Westminster?
At the end of 2025, ministers dramatically delayed all six regional mayor elections planned for 2026. Instead, the six areas are now split in their timelines.
Two of the six areas covered by the Devolution Priority Programme, Cumbria and Cheshire & Warrington, will see their inaugural Mayoral Election in 2027. These two areas have already gone through Local Government Reorganisation with old districts and counties merged into unitary authorities.
The remaining four areas will face a two year delay, with mayors now due to be elected in May 2028. These areas have yet to complete the concurrent process of redrawing their council boundaries (more information on the difference here), and their new unitary councils are expected to come into existence in April 2028. These four mayoral areas are:
- Greater Essex (Essex, Southend and Thurrock)
- Norfolk and Suffolk
- Hampshire and the Solent (Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight)
- Sussex and Brighton
Despite these one to two year delays to Mayoral Elections (and consequently to Directly Elected Mayors), there will be no delay to Mayoral Strategic Authorities coming into existence in all six areas. In December, the Secretary of State Steve Reed indicated that the government will still set these authorities up “as soon as possible” – they were originally penned for May 2026.
While the new Mayoral Strategic Authorities will be on a much-reduced budget and won’t secure the suite of mayoral powers until their first Mayors are elected in 2027 or 2028, they will still be expected to “start delivering on key local priorities and deliver the benefits of devolution on the ground” according to the Secretary of State.
Confusingly, despite no mayoral elections being held, political control of these new Strategic Authorities is still up for grabs in May. Without a Mayor, political direction will fall to the counties and unitary councils in the region. In most places, this will effectively sit with the existing counties, almost all of which are up for election in May after most council leaders have confirmed their intention to go ahead with elections, despite a government offer of another delay.*
Political control of these bodies won’t hit the headlines as much as mayoral elections would have if they had gone ahead this year, but politicians in six future Mayoral Strategic areas will be eyeing up control of the first shoots of power moving out of Westminster in a few months’ time.
While many of us had expected 2026 to be the Year of the Mayor (me included!) we may instead be looking at the slightly less catchy ‘Year of the Strategic Authority’.
*A significant minority of council leaders requested a delay to their elections. A full list is available here from the BBC.
Note: while delays apply to regional mayors, six directly elected mayors will still be elected in May. These directly elected mayors are similar to council leaders and are not separate to the devolution process.
