At an extraordinary meeting of Essex County Council this morning (January 10th), the Council voted to write to the Secretary of State to request that Essex (along with Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk) be considered in the first tranche of new devolution projects.
Current (2025) map of Essex authorities
This would involve the disbanding of the County Council, the two unitary authorities – Southend and Thurrock – and the county’s twelve borough, city and district councils.
It is expected that the result would be up to four new unitary authorities and an over-arching mayoral authority, headed by an elected ‘Mayor of Essex’.
This would be the biggest change to local government since the current system was created in the mid nineteen seventies.
If the Secretary of State agrees, then the negotiations would need to commence in March, which would normally be part of the ‘pre-election’ period for May’s County Council elections, so it may be that these will be postponed – initially for a year.