Plans for new ‘north Warwickshire council’ to run services for Rugby are back on - but reshuffle is delayed by a year
Plans for a new ‘north Warwickshire council’ to run services for Rugby are back on but the reshuffle has been delayed by one year.
The government’s under-secretary for local government, devolution and regional growth Jim McMahon MP (Lab) announced on Thursday (October 29) that the two-unitary option – new single councils to cover all major services in the north and south of Warwickshire – would go ahead as planned.
Warwickshire was among a number of areas where work to abolish the current county, district and borough council system, which delivers services across two levels of local government, was paused amid legal challenges emanating from other parts of the country.
The region was among five areas, including Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire, that saw its initial proposals put back on track, albeit subject to a final three-week opportunity for “further representations” prior to being rubber stamped in parliament.
The initial plan, announced in July, had been for elections to take place for the new authorities – one covering the boroughs of Nuneaton & Bedworth, North Warwickshire and Rugby in the north and another covering the districts of Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon in the south – in May 2027 but they are now pushed back to May 2028.
Instead, district and borough council elections will go ahead in the areas that are due them in May 2027. Councillors who win seats will serve for one year in full charge and a second year alongside the new authorities that are set up through votes in May 2028. The new unitaries then take full charge from April 2029.
It means that there will be all-out elections at Warwick District Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council and North Warwickshire Borough Council.
Rugby Borough Council will elect a third – 14 of 42 – of its seats, as it does every year that there is not a county council election. No ballots will be held at Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council as they elect in halves every other year.
Provided the two-unitary plan hits no further bumps in the road, every area will elect from scratch to the new authorities in 2028.