Plans to replace 10 Derbyshire councils with 2 new larger ones, to be paused for a “rapid review”

The Derbyshire LGR decision map. Image from One Derbyshire Two Councils.

A major Government decision to scrap Derbyshire’s 10 councils and replace them with two new, larger councils from 2028 is to be paused for a “rapid review”.

Sources have confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the decision to pause follows judicial reviews brought over the four council reshuffles agreed by the Government earlier this year.

The 14 decisions made in July, including the reshuffle for Derby and Derbyshire’s 10 councils, will now be paused for a review, the LDRS has been told.

A length for this pause has not yet been detailed but it has been dubbed as “rapid” by sources.

The decision has major implications for the local elections in May 2027, which were supposed to appoint elected members to the planned new Derbyshire North Council and Derbyshire South Council.

There will now be a rush to find and vet candidates for all of those council contests.

It has now been confirmed that the current local council elections will now take place instead, with no detail released on appointing members to the planned new councils or how this will affect the official launch of the new authorities – scheduled for April 1st, 2028.

The decision to pause has been met with a mix of surprise and support from sources speaking to the LDRS, with a worry about the impact on the wider process and how it will affect work that has already started and which is time sensitive, costly, and resource intensive.

In July, the Government announced that Derby and Derbyshire’s 10 councils – including the county, city and eight district and borough authorities – will be scrapped and replaced with two new councils along a north and south divide, with Amber Valley split in two.

The split will see Bolsover, Chesterfield, Derbyshire Dales and North East Derbyshire councils abolished and, with the upper half of Amber Valley (21 parishes), will form the northern council.

Meanwhile, Derby, Erewash and South Derbyshire councils will be scrapped and will form the southern council with the lower half of Amber Valley (14 parishes).

Since that decision, councillors have started the next stages of the process to get the new councils ready for launch, including contract arrangements, staff exits, IT and building rationalisation, the future of the £7 billion Derbyshire pension fund and much more.

Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk have had their local government reorganisation decisions withdrawn following challenges to the decision-making process, the LDRS has been told.

The move is said to be out of an “abundance of caution” to shore up the decision-making process behind each of the 14 areas announced in July, including Derbyshire.

This to ensure that those decisions are safer and more secure to resist any potential judicial challenges over the reshuffle option reached by the Government,

At the time of the July announcement, opposition parties had suspected that the Labour Government had given undue preference to the council reshuffles backed by Labour-led councils.

In Derbyshire, the chosen council reshuffle was supported by Chesterfield, Derby, Erewash and High Peak, all of which are Labour-led, but Labour-led Amber Valley, Bolsover, North East Derbyshire and South Derbyshire opted for other layouts not backed by Government.

The reshuffle of Derbyshire’s councils is to take £66 million to setup new authorities and disaggregate the existing bodies.

The councils say the expected annual savings from local government reorganisation, from year three onwards, would be £44 million.