Lancashire mayoral election pushed back to 2028 amid row over council mergers

Lancashire’s first mayoral election will not take place until May 2028, a year later than planned, after ministers concluded that the county’s councils were too divided over their own reorganisation to run a mayoral contest alongside it.

The decision, confirmed in a written statement on Thursday, means Lancashire will be the last of the large northern counties to elect a mayor. It also delays the release of about £1bn in investment funding over 30 years that was attached to the deal, together with powers over transport, adult skills and housing that other combined authorities have exercised since 2017.

At the heart of the dispute is the government’s requirement that the county’s two-tier system of a county council and 12 districts, plus the unitary authorities of Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, be replaced by a handful of new unitary councils before a mayor takes office. Local leaders submitted three competing proposals, for two, three and four new authorities, and have spent the past six months lobbying against one another in Whitehall.

“Everyone in Lancashire wants devolution except on the terms that anyone else in Lancashire will accept,” said one minister involved in the talks. “We have run out of patience and, frankly, out of calendar. The reorganisation has to happen first.”

The leader of Lancashire county council, Cllr Geoff Ramsbottom, accused the government of “punishing Lancashire for having an opinion” and said a four-authority model that preserved distinct councils for east Lancashire, the Fylde coast, Preston and the north was “the only one with any public support”. Blackpool council, which fears being absorbed into a larger coastal authority, has threatened legal action if its boundaries are changed without a referendum.

Business groups were dismayed. The Lancashire chamber of commerce said members had already waited a decade for a deal that Greater Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire had long since banked. “Every year this drags on is a year of bus franchising, skills money and transport investment that goes to our neighbours instead,” said its chief executive, Dominic Whitworth. “The councils need to understand that nobody in Burnley or Lancaster cares about their boundaries. They care about whether the bus comes.”

The delay has political consequences as well. A 2028 contest would fall a year before the likely date of the next general election, making it a significant test for all parties in a county that contains some of the most marginal seats in England. The government’s opponents are expected to campaign hard against what they describe as a top-down abolition of local councils.

The communities secretary told MPs the government would impose a structure by order in the spring if councils could not agree, and that the mayoral election would then proceed “without further delay”.