Why do some councils want to delay the local elections?

In what is proving to be a highly controversial move, county councils all over England are seeking to postpone local elections due this May.

- SEAN O'GRADY

The reason given is the impending reorganization of local government in England, which includes creating new, larger authorities that encompass a number of existing counties a result of the government's drive to promote regional devolution and to lower costs.

Some of the countries keen on reform argue that they need to concentrate on the complex new arrangements, and elections would get in the way. The assumption is that the delay would be for a year. Some millions of voters would be "deprived of their local democracy", according to the District Councils Network, which represents the smaller district local authorities, who are likely to lose out. As you'd expect, there's lots of party politics involved, too...

What are the reforms?

This time round they're concentrated on streamlining "two tier" governance, mostly in those English counties with famous, historic names - Essex, Devon, Surrey and so on. Sometimes this is coupled with merging a number of counties into one "combined authority".

Since the last shake-up in the 1990s, many areas of England have two tiers of local government: county councils - responsible for transport, education, and social care, for example - and district, borough, or city councils, who look after planning applications, refuse collections, and housing, among other things.