Local elections will take place in Adur and Worthing in May 2026

Released: Tuesday, 17 February 2026

The government has written to us to say that local elections will take place in Adur and Worthing after all.

In December it wrote to all councils that are involved with local government reorganisation to ask them if they thought postponing elections would free up time to progress with local government reorganisation effectively.

Last month Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, announced that he had decided to postpone the May 2026 elections in Adur and Worthing, along with 28 other areas across England.

Yesterday (Monday 16th February 2026), Mr Reed wrote to us to say that he would no longer be seeking to postpone elections this summer. Our local elections will therefore take place in May as originally planned.

As the government had not yet completed the legal process needed to postpone elections, we continued to plan as if the elections would go ahead, so we're still on track to hold elections in May.

We do however welcome Mr Reed's decision to provide additional funding for the local government reorganisation process and look forward to receiving details of what this will look like.