The local elections are going ahead in Wokingham amid widespread uncertainty about scheduled elections elsewhere in the country.
Local government is being overhauled by the Labour government, which plans to replace the two-tier system of county and district councils with unitary authorities.
All six councils in Berkshire have been unitary authorities since Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998, so there will be no delays to any elections scheduled here this year.
Councils run elections either as all‑out votes every four years, or ‘by thirds’ where a third of councillors are elected each year. That creates a ‘fallow year’ with no elections while councillors serve four‑year terms.
Wokingham Borough Council and Reading Borough Council use the ‘by thirds’ system and both had a fallow year in 2025 — that meant no elections last year, but they resume this May.
Bracknell Forest Council and West Berkshire Council, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and Slough Borough Council hold all‑out elections every four years.
There were concerns national reorganisation could cancel local polls. Of the 63 councils undergoing change, 30 that were due to hold elections looked set to have them cancelled by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
Reform UK successfully legally challenged those 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.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Government said: “Following legal advice, the Government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.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 had an all‑out election in 2023 when Labour won control for the first time since the council was created in 1998, after a ‘progressive alliance’ of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party saw candidates stand down in some wards. The council is now under no overall control after councillors Cherise Welch and Caroline Egglestone left Labour to form Bracknell Forest Independents.
The last elections for Wokingham and Reading borough councils were in 2024. Buckinghamshire and Somerset became unitary councils in 2020 and 2023 respectively.
James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter
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