Labour has confirmed that a total of 29 council elections scheduled for May will be postponed.
Ministers asked 63 councils in England last month if they wanted to delay their elections until 2027 so they could bed in a local government shake-up.
Of those councils, 29 have decided to take up the offer and push back elections.
The Government has said the remaining 34 councils also going through reorganisation will still hold local elections in May, meaning the majority will go ahead as planned.
According to The Times, Essex and Norfolk council leaders have made private requests to postpone their elections, which would take the number of affected voters to around 5.6 million.
Councillors in areas where elections are postponed will have their terms extended, the Local Government Secretary has said.
Steve Reed told MPs in the Commons: “In areas where elections are postponed, existing councillors will have their terms extended for a short period.
“Once the new unitary councils are agreed, we will hold elections to them in 2027.”
He added: “To those who say we’ve cancelled all the elections, we haven’t.
Steve Reed told MPs he was not ‘playing politics’ as he announced 29 councils had chosen to push back their elections
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“To those who say it’s all Labour councils, it isn’t. I’ve asked, I’ve listened, and I’ve acted.
“No messing about, no playing politics, just getting on with the job of making local government work better for local people.”
Labour’s planned local government shake-up will see two-tier councils combined into single unitary authorities.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has said streamlining councils will “eliminate confusion and duplication” to allow more cash to be spent on “things the public want”.
Shadow housing, communities and local government secretary James Cleverly has accused Mr Reed of “putting pressure on councils” to cancel their elections and argued that it is due to “the Labour Party’s collapse in the opinion polls”.
Mr Cleverly said: “Why did he write to councils asking them to ask him to cancel the elections? And why, when they didn’t give him the answer that he wanted, did he write to them again asking basically the same question?
“Why was his department putting pressure on councils to ask for cancelations as late as last night? I know why. He knows why. We all know why.
“It’s because he wants to shift the blame. He wants to say ‘I didn’t make them do it’. He wants a political gotcha.
“He is putting councils in an impossible position, squeezing them financially, imposing the cost and disruption of large scale reorganisation on them, making promises about structures, about timescales, about funding, and then reneging on those promises.”
Reform UK is taking legal action against the MHCLG over the plans to allow councils to delay elections.
On Tuesday, lawyers for Nigel Farage’s party told the High Court in London that if a date for a full hearing could be set relatively quickly, then they would not seek a temporary block on the plans.
Julian Blake, representing the MHCLG, said the Secretary of State was content to agree to a “reasonable amount of expedition” in the matter so it could be resolved before March 27 and therefore the application was “unnecessary”.
Reform UK is taking legal action against the MHCLG over the plans to allow councils to delay elections
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Mr Blake said in written submissions: “The powers that are the subject of the claim are properly a product of primary legislation.
“They have been used on many occasions, including for example, to allow for postponement of local elections in areas contemplating and undergoing local government reorganisation.”
Timothy Straker KC, representing Reform UK, said in written submissions that the party wanted to ensure that anyone who might want to be associated with the party “should be considered and scrutinised by the claimant well in advance of the election”.
A two-day hearing of the legal challenge is expected to begin on February 19.
The full list of councils where legislation will be brought forward to postpone elections is:
- Adur District Council
- Basildon Borough Council
- Blackburn with Darwen Council
- Burnley Borough Council
- Cannock Chase District Council
- Cheltenham Borough Council
- Chorley Borough Council
- City of Lincoln Council
- Crawley Borough Council
- East Sussex County Council
- Exeter City Council
- Harlow District Council
- Hastings Borough Council
- Hyndburn Borough Council
- Ipswich Borough Council
- Norfolk County Council
- Norwich City Council
- Peterborough City Council
- Preston City Council
- Redditch Borough Council
- Rugby Borough Council
- Stevenage Borough Council
- Suffolk County Council
- Tamworth Borough Council
- Thurrock Council
- Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
- West Lancashire Borough Council
- West Sussex County Council
- Worthing Borough Council