Changes are already underway: Hampshire will get new councils and a new mayor; the district councils will end; the mayor will get more powers to make local decisions.
These significant changes are already underway. There are two distinct elements to this process of change:
i) local councils will be re-organised, each to cover larger areas with bigger populations;
ii) a new mayor will be elected to cover the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
At present, in most of Hampshire, we have three levels of local councils: county, district and parish. The Westminster government, supported by the councils, has decided to merge the county and district councils to create a single level of council – a “unitary council”. So, over the next couple of years Hampshire County Council and East Hampshire District Council will both disappear.
Hampshire already has three small unitary councils: Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton. The new unitary councils must each have at least 500,000 people, so these 3 smaller councils will also disappear. However, an exception may be made for the Isle of Wight, to reflect its geographical separateness.
Because the whole of Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, has a population of about 2 million, it is likely that there will be 5 new unitary councils, although this is not certain. Discussions about the composition of each new unitary authority are currently taking place.
ii) The next step in the process will be to bring together the areas governed by the new unitary authorities to create a new regional authority headed by an elected mayor. This will be known as a County Combined Authority. It will have the power to make strategic decisions for the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, especially involving large-scale infrastructure planning.The Westminster government will transfer some of its decision-making powers to the new County Combined Authority and its Mayor. This is intended to bring accountability to a more local level. This is the process of devolution.
Normally, we would have been electing Councillors for Hampshire County Council in May 2025. However, because of the extra workload that the re-organisation is putting on local councils, the usual county council elections have been postponed. You will be electing the new mayor in 2026.
We, in the Green Party, feel strongly that some of the rules that have already been announced for the mayoral election are unfair and lacking in democracy. Our criticisms will appear on this website soon, along with our proposals to make this important election more democratic.
