Opposition parties on Stevenage Borough Council have spoken out against plans to postpone May’s local elections in the town.
The Labour-run council’s cabinet agreed on Wednesday (January 14) to back postponing the polls as work continues on local government reorganisation (LGR) proposals to replace the county council and the 10 district and borough councils in Hertfordshire with two, three or four unitary authorities.
But Liberal Democrat, Reform UK and Conservative councillors have strongly opposed the potential postponement, ahead of the Government making a final decision on whether the elections will go ahead.
Cllr Andy McGuinness, leader of the council’s Lib Dem group, said it was “a betrayal of local people’s democratic right to vote” and Labour were “cowardly, unjustified and wrong” to support postponement.
He continued: “We don’t discount the additional pressures that local government reorganisation will have on Stevenage Borough Council, but we believe this can be managed and in no way justifies the cancelling of elections in May.
“Labour are running scared of local people in Stevenage. To deny people’s democratic rights just because you are afraid of how people may vote is spineless and a wilful destruction of our democratic system.”
Labour say postponing the May elections will “protect” the council’s services and finances as the LGR process takes shape.
They believe it will save around £155,000 and enable the council to focus on the upcoming transfer of powers to the new authority.
If the reorganisation proceeds as planned, a new unitary authority will hold shadow elections in 2027 before formally taking over power in April 2028.
Local government minister Alison McGovern wrote to Hertfordshire’s councils in December asking for their views on postponing the elections due to be held in May.
In Stevenage, a third of the council’s 39 seats were set to be up for election. Those seats were last up for grabs in 2024, when boundary changes saw an unusual ‘all out’ election in the borough that meant all 39 seats were in play.
The result is that the 13 councillors whose seats were due for election in May have served for two years rather than the usual four years – a point Labour have stressed in defending their decision to support postponement.
The leader of the council’s Reform UK group, Cllr Mason Humberstone, who was first elected in 2023 as a Labour councillor, said Stevenage residents had the right to vote “at the scheduled time”.
He continued: “The right to vote is a fundamental right of all British citizens, not a privilege granted at the convenience of those in power.
“Labour’s decision to cancel elections in Stevenage is an attack on our democracy. When politicians cancel elections, it is not about good governance – it is about fear.”
The council’s sole Conservative, Cllr Phil Bibby, said he did “not accept” Labour’s arguments for cancelling elections, describing the decision as “undemocratic and wrong”.
He added: “It’s true that there is a cost of the elections, and officers are involved in additional local government reform work, but these do not justify denying residents the vote on who represents them for the coming 12 months.
“Given that opinion polls are not favourable to the Starmer Government, I cannot help being cynical about the motivations at play here.”
Of the six councils in Hertfordshire that were set to hold elections in May, only the two with Labour leaders – Stevenage and Welwyn Hatfield – have called for elections to be postponed.
The four other councils – Broxbourne, St Albans, Three Rivers and Watford – have told the Government elections should go ahead as planned.
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