As reported by the BBC, and as stated in their own proposals, the leadership of Surrey County Council want to postpone local elections, scheduled for May 2025.

We ask that the government rejects Surrey County Council’s undemocratic proposals, allowing Surrey’s residents to have their say on Surrey’s future in May 2025, as planned.

With so much going wrong with Surrey County Council - from terrible failings in child safeguarding and Special Educational Needs, to our perennially potholed roads - residents deserve the opportunity to hold “the powers that be” to account.

It would be profoundly undemocratic if the leadership of SCC escaped the scrutiny of the electorate at this critical moment under the guise of local government reform.

Therefore we are calling on the Government to reject Surrey County Council’s proposals and to ensure that:

Elections in May go ahead as planned, allowing political parties and groupings to make their pitches for the future of Surrey clear to the electorate.

A new administration of Surrey County Council (after May 2025) works with District and Borough Councils, communities across Surrey, and neighbouring authorities (including Berkshire and Hampshire) to sensibly and soberly devise the most appropriate shape, size and scale of Unitary Authorities for our county. To do anything less risks reproducing precisely the same problems that have dogged local government since the previous “reforms” in 1974.

We believe that democratic decision making must be at the heart of this process - not a victim of it.

#LocalGovernmentReform #Democracy #SpecialEducationalNeeds #SEND