‘It’s undemocratic’: What it’s like to live under a council you can’t get rid of

No matter how diabolical or ineffective a council might seem, some comfort can be found in the democratic process – every four years, local elections offer the voting public an opportunity to make their voices heard.

In 2026, though, that opportunity is no longer a given. In what has been called an “assault on democracy”, more than a third of eligible councils in England are set to postpone ballots scheduled for May.

The delays stem from Labour’s plans to overhaul local government through devolution and council mergers, with ministers arguing that elections should wait until new authorities are established – a justification which conveniently sidelines voters in largely Labour-run areas. Critics say the postponements will benefit incumbents under threat from insurgent parties, particularly Reform UK and the Greens.

Few places will be harder hit than Labour-controlled Chorley in Lancashire, which over the past 10 years has seen the steepest decline in spending power of any council in the country. Despite the squeeze on services, council tax bills have risen, on average, by more than 50 per cent.

Many locals are furious with the status quo and argue that the normal democratic process should be allowed to run its course.

‘Labour are running scared’

Craige Southern, Conservative borough councillor for Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South

“If you want to cancel an election and deny people their democratic right, you at least have to give a good reason. People in this country are furious about this Labour government. Any opportunity to get out there and kick them would be taken. And so which Labour council is going to go ahead with elections in May, with Reform on the march?

“In Chorley, there are pressing issues including planning permission being granted for local greenbelt land, and a growing number of Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs). And the point is, by cancelling the elections, you are denying the people their democratic right to to express their opinion on those issues.

“The kicker is we have a four year cycle here, where elections take place each year for a third of [all] councillors. Given the majority Labour have, even if they lost every councillor in this election, they would still have the majority. So, really, this is just a cynical move to remove people’s right to express themselves. Anything that takes democracy away from the people and fails to give them a voice is fundamentally wrong.

“We had elections last year in the council in Lancashire, and the Conservative group lost longstanding and hard-working county councillors. That’s not great for my party, but was it right to go ahead with the elections? Of course it was. That’s how we do it in Britain – everyone has a vote, fair and square.”

‘Elections would make a huge difference to my business’

Martin Boardman, 51, director of a local construction company

“The council’s understaffing issues and politically driven housing agenda are affecting my construction company and other small businesses. I am heavily reliant on the council at every stage of the process, from planning decisions to street naming, council and property registration. It is frustrating that our majority Labour administration can make, and run with, decisions with very little objection. Now the local elections have been cancelled, I won’t even be able to vote to oust them.

“Currently, we’re building five very small bungalows for the over-55s that we’re selling on the open market. That’s taken us over two and a half years to get through the local planning system and cost us £60,000 in the process. Not only do we have planning fees, we also have something called the Community Infrastructure Levy [CIL] on every new build property. That money goes straight back to Chorley Council, which does with those funds what the current councillors wish, which is very frustrating. This money is not spent in the local area but just adds to the cost of building properties, even for housing the borough so desperately needs, making the local housing market very expensive.

“Local elections this year would make a huge difference to my business. With greater representation from other parties, you might see a bit more challenge when councillors are making important decisions.”

‘We can’t vote for our MP – and now we can’t even vote for our council’

Dave Houghton, 49, has lived in Chorley all his life

“The fact is because our MP is Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, we don’t get a say in it [the area’s seat]. There’s a longstanding tradition that means the Speaker gets no opposition from other parties. So it feels like we can’t vote for our MP, and now we can’t even vote for our council. With the feeling in the country, I wouldn’t be surprised if these cancelled elections cause trouble. Two of the biggest issues for us locally are planning and immigration, and yet it seems like the council have done nothing about either. The people in the town can’t get a property, yet the council continually approves new HMOs that seem to mainly house people who have just arrived in the UK.

“There’s so much upset in the area about it, with locals saying that we can’t have more people coming in if we can’t look after the people we already have. In that way, I suppose it mirrors the rest of the UK. Increasingly, planning permission is granted for greenbelt land, meanwhile on the edge of Chorley there’s a huge brownfield site that used to be Camelot Theme Park, which closed in 2012. My opinion is that people need somewhere to live and it might as well be there, but no one can get planning permission for it, so it’s still just a ruin.

It’s been sliding downhill for years here. In the centre of town, all you can smell is cannabis, and there are only a few proper shops left. Despite the fact that I see evidence of petty crime and antisocial behaviour all the time, I never see any evidence the police are cracking down on it. That’s why there’s been such a swing to Reform – if I were given the chance, I would definitely vote for them myself. We have a Reform county councillor, Lee Hutchinson, and he’s actually working very hard for his constituency to get people’s concerns sorted. He actually chases the council to do something about them. The streets around here are in a bad shape, but he’s even had some of the potholes filled.”

‘It feels like political manoeuvring’

Nicola Wood, 43, a product development manager, and James Groves, 46, a stock coordinator, have lived together in Chorley for five years

“When the first application came in to put an HMO in a building round the corner from us, we understood that everybody in the country has to accommodate them [such properties] and that these things need to happen. But two HMOs within five metres of each other – which is what could have happened to us, if we hadn’t objected – and then you’ve suddenly got an extra 40 people in a very small area.

“There was an empty office building at the end of our road which has barely ever caused us any concerns, that’s where the second HMO could have ended up. We were never consulted on this by our council – and we were disappointed; we didn’t even receive a letter to say an application had been put in place.

“Somebody else in the neighbourhood actually posted the application to get our attention – and we immediately objected. We have a nursery nearby, and a park nearby where people like to walk their dogs. A second HMO would have affected what is a really nice area, and impacted everybody in the nearby vicinity.

“The council did refuse the application in the end, luckily, but we still have worries. Because we weren’t consulted about the second HMO, and now we are in a position where the local elections are postponed, we do wonder what will come next?

We should never have been made to feel like that from our politicians and the powers that be. First it was the situation with HMOs, and now we are facing the elections being postponed – it feels like these are two instances of political manoeuvring. On top of this, postponing the local elections exacerbates the frustration we feel at not being able to vote at the general election because we live in the Speaker’s seat.”

‘The politicians have lost touch with the people’

Sam White, 31, and Jess Hartley, 30, run Sun & Salt – a small independent café, bar and restaurant in Chorley town centre

“We opened Sun & Salt a year ago and it’s been an amazing journey from a little café to what we are now. But while we’re up on turnover, the profit margin is lower than we anticipated.

“Staffing costs are really high because of the national insurance and minimum wage changes from last year, and that’s hit us pretty hard. But the business rates changes that are coming in this year will be a real stinger. We’re paying something like £600 a month now but it’ll go up 35 per cent, which is massive.

“So we need help from the local council. We need them to be on our side – not just to save the hospitality industry here but to create an environment where businesses like ours can lead the charge for Chorley.

“Our industry is crying out for help, effectively. Who do we get that help from though? In Chorley, contested local elections feel like they carry more weight than in most places because our MP is the Speaker of the House.

“So delaying them just leaves everything up in the air. It feels like they [the politicians] have lost touch with the very people who are dealing with the consequences of their actions.”

‘The council is rewriting the landscape – all development rules have been overwritten’

Steve Royce, 61, is retired and lives in a village just outside Chorley

“I live next to a field that was farmed, with sheep on it as recently as last year. This greenbelt land should be protected – but since the Chorley Local Plan guiding development decisions expired in 2023, it has been a planning free-for-all. Five or six applications to build nine houses have been submitted immediately within the vicinity of where I live.

“It’s destroying this area and all the green space. The countryside is being eroded and I feel powerless to stop it – it’s very sad.

“Development has become ad hoc; it is rewriting the landscape, and all the rules of green belt development have been overwritten. The cancellation of the council elections seems very much like delay tactics from the government because they wouldn’t be voted back in – I see what they’re trying to do, and it’s very frustrating.”

‘The cancellation has taken away my chance to run as a local councillor’

Ethan Howarth, 20, has lived in West Chorley all his life and wants to become a local Conservative politician

“I first became interested in politics when I was annoyed about how this Labour government was behaving, and the impact it was having on my village. I started having conversations with a few friends of mine in the pub, mostly farmers. I don’t think Labour care about farmers, there’s been very little support for them, and the little support they’ve had has come after fighting tooth and nail. It feels like Labour have abandoned farmers and just handed wealth to more urban communities.

“As I grew up I watched my area’s rural charm slipping away, and it’s frustrating. You have a small village with a couple of hundred houses – and the council will build another hundred more houses on it.

“I was hoping to run in the next local elections, but news that the election has been postponed is just another blow. It’s undemocratic at the end of the day. People should always have the right to choose who they are represented by, and should always be represented by people that they feel represent them in an honest way.”

A spokesperson for Chorley Borough Council said: “We recognise the high bar that should be placed on postponing local elections. We have expressed that in our communications with the Government on the matter, but there is also a strong precedent for elections for councils being postponed, cancelled or otherwise re-arranged in the run up to local government reorganisation – seen recently in places such as Cumbria, but also dating back to the last reorganisation in Lancashire in 1974. While the Government may decide to postpone the 2026 elections for part of Chorley Council, all voters will get the chance to elect the new council in all-out elections in 2027.

“In relation to planning applications, we know that there will always be frustrations and concerns with the planning system, but we have to report the time it takes to deal with planning applications and consistently perform well compared with other councils. The increasing numbers of HMOs within Chorley has been a cause for concern for residents and the council. That’s why we’ve introduced a borough-wide Article 4 direction, meaning that all HMOs now require planning permission.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]