Leader of Peterborough City Council explains why authority voted to 'postpone' holding elections in 2026

Cllr Qayyum and her cabinet voted unanimously on Monday night (January 12) to send representatives to central government that the authority does not wish to hold the scheduled 2026 local elections.

The government has given 64 councils across the country the opportunity to give their opinions on whether or not they wish to hold elections in 2026 due to upcoming Local Government Reorganisation; which is set to go live in April 2028. All out elections are planned for all of the 60 council seats in 2027.

Cllr Qayyum has spoken about the need for the authority to use the full capacity of its council officers to prepare to transition to a newly-authority and stressed Peterborough’s position as an ‘anchor authority’, picking up and being expected to extend its currents services- such as children’s and adult social care- to surrounding areas that will eventually form part of the new authority with Peterborough.

Cllr Qayyum said: “We have proposed a view to postpone elections until 2027. There are lots of reasons for it.

“When we have a look at ourselves in terms of the whole scheme of LGR around the Cambridgeshire region, we are one of the anchor authorities that oversee services for frail and vulnerable residents such as children’s services and adult social care. Whatever options gets picked out of the bag by the government, we are scheduled to that timeline where we are going to have to go to consultation in early February.

“Local government reform is not just a boundary tweak. It’s a complete rebuild of the electoral system, while maintaining by-elections and parish council elections, whilst maintaining voter confidence throughout and building a platform for a new authority as Peterborough City Council will cease to exist.

“We are not taking democracy away, we are simply postponing elections. To do away with a temporary cohort of councillors to make way for a more stable and better administration. We had elections every year in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, with five elections in 2019. We haven’t taken democracy away, we are postponing elections while a better, stronger foundation is built.

“We are setting up robust, water-tight services for the vulnerable group of people that everybody protests about when we are cutting services when we are in precarious financial situations. Why do we have a risk of elections when it comes to social care.

“The goal is stability, not disruption.We would have a temporary set of councillors, who won’t be able to make any significant financial decisions after 2027. You are actually placing those vulnerable residents at risk.

“Having elections in 2026 risks undermining that democratic process of elections that some of our councillors wanted and undermining that democracy.

“We still have a lot of postal voter registrations that remain pending, we still have to take resource away from those essential business as usual service.

“We are also one of the unique authorities in the region which has so many legacy issues with some of the decisions which were made in the past.

“Having to deal with that, with the added disruption seeks to undermine not only the elections in 2026 but in 2027, we’re really not putting ourselves on a stable footing. We are dismantling this council and setting the foundations for a firm, robust new authority that is going to have a governance.

“We will set out that we are ready for all out elections in 2027, that is our intention. We don’t want to take democracy away from people. It’s postponing elections and looking to set up a robust form of democracy.

“I strongly disagree with the fact that we are taking away democracy if you have a look at the context to local government reform. I have laid out the reasons we are going to have capacity issues and when we look at democracy, you have to ensure that every single person gets their ballot paper, is registered to vote, sometimes these things can get missed.”