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The local elections are going ahead in Wokingham amid widespread uncertainty about scheduled elections elsewhere in the country.
Local government is currently undergoing an overhaul that is being driven by the Labour government, which will abolish the ‘two-tier’ local government system of county and district councils in favour of unitary authorities.
All six of the councils in Berkshire have been unitary authorities since Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998.
Therefore, there will be no delays to any elections scheduled this year.
Councils hold elections in two ways: they either have all-out elections held every three years, or votes ‘by thirds’ where a third of the councillors are elected each year.
This cycle creates a ‘fallow year’ where there are no elections to allow councillors to serve their four-year terms.
Wokingham Borough Council and Reading Borough Council both have ‘by thirds’ electoral systems, with both having a ‘fallow year’ in 2025.
That meant that there were no elections in either place last year, with elections resuming this May.
Bracknell Forest Council and the three other councils in Berkshire all have ‘all-out’ elections held every four years.
The other councils are West Berkshire Council, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and Slough Borough Council.
There have been concerns about the cancellation of local elections due to the reorganisation of local government that will see the abolition of county and district councils to unify powers within one authority.
Of the 63 councils that are undergoing reorganisation, 30 which were due to have elections were going to have them cancelled by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
However, the political party Reform UK successfully legally challenged these cancellations, meaning the elections will go ahead on Thursday, May 7.
Nigel Farage, Reform UK MP for Clacton and the party leader, posted on X/Twitter: “We took this Labour government to court and won.”
Confirming the decision to go ahead with the elections, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Government said: “Following legal advice, the Government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.
“Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.”
Bracknell Forest Council had its all-out election in 2023, which saw the Labour Party win control for the first time in its history since it was created in 1998.
It came after a ‘progressive alliance’ of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, which involved candidates not competing with each other in certain wards.
The political balance of the council is now ‘no overall control’ after councillors Cherise Welch and Caroline Egglestone left Labour to create Bracknell Forest Independents.
The last elections for Wokingham and Reading borough councils took place in 2024.
Buckinghamshire and Somerset councils were already turned into unitary councils in 2020 and 2023, respectively.
