On 7 May 2026, voters across England will choose new councils in elections that could produce a more unsettled political landscape than we have seen for some time. That matters not only because control may shift, but because the stability needed to design, sustain, and deliver policy may shift with it. The central question is what happens to policy when councils become more fragmented, or when political control changes hands altogether?
Politics of the many, not the two
What is distinctive this year is the pattern of fragmentation emerging. Reform UK has shown in several areas that it can secure the largest share of the vote without being able to run the council. The Green Party is gaining ground across many authorities, becoming competitive well beyond previous cycles. As shown in our polling report, together these trends point to the likelihood that an increasing number of councils will be elected where no party has a reliable majority, and where the ideological distance between groups is wider than before.
This is not the first time a new party has broken through in local elections without converting votes into control – UKIP won hundreds of council seats in 2013–2015, yet never came close to running a single council. What makes 2026 different is that multiple insurgent parties are crossing that threshold simultaneously. The closest historical parallel for genuine multi-party competition at the council level is the early 1920s, when Conservatives, Liberals and Labour were all in contention – but that was three parties. Today there are five.
As posited by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, that has a practical effect: sustaining policy from agreement to delivery becomes harder when the political arithmetic is unstable. In councils without overall control, the difficulty is rarely the first decision to pursue a policy. It is the sequence that follows – budget rounds, committee stages, and points of sign‑off where support has to hold. Where no group can rely on a consistent majority of votes to back a policy, decisions that appear settled can be reopened as political balances shift. This does not prevent policy implementation, but it increases the likelihood of delay, redesign, or loss of momentum.
When continuity becomes clarity
This pressure is greatest for cumulative policies that need continuity rather than one‑off decisions. Regeneration schemes, multi‑year environmental programmes, capital planning, and long‑term service redesign all depend on steady political sponsorship. Budgets will still be set, and statutory duties will still be met, but policies requiring multi‑stage approval or long-term commitment become more vulnerable. The risk is not that decisions cannot be taken, but that they cannot be held long enough to achieve their intended impact.
That changes how policy is developed. Officers and political leaders have to think not just about what works, but what can survive the approval journey. Options may be narrowed earlier. Proposals may be shaped to minimise future conflict points. Trade-offs may be framed differently when the political balance could tighten, loosen, or tilt during delivery. A finely balanced council reshapes what is considered deliverable in the first place.
What the parties are promising
These dynamics become clearer when viewed against the agendas parties are taking to voters.
Labour is focusing on targeted local investment and community-led spending through programmes such as “Pride in Place” – a ten-year fund covering 339 deprived neighbourhoods, each receiving up to £20m through locally convened Neighbourhood Boards. The party has also moved to reform Right to Buy, proposing to raise the eligibility period to ten years and exempt newly built social homes from the scheme for 35 years, alongside campaigning for cost-of-living measures including a lower energy price cap and reducing NHS waiting lists.
The Greens are emphasising their support for rent controls and the total abolition of leasehold, pointing to Green-led councils in Lewes and Mid Suffolk as proof of delivery on social housing. On transport, Green Party Leader Zack Polanski (GP, Londonwide) has called for buses to be brought back into public control, fares capped, and travel made free for under-22s – a policy the 2025 Bus Services Act gave councils the tools to pursue.
The Liberal Democrats are fighting on local health, proposing that developers would be required to fund GP surgeries – including the contracts to staff them – before new residents move in, in order to end a cycle where new homes are built but GP provision never follows. They are also campaigning on sewage, fly-tipping, and business rates relief for independent traders. Underpinning it all is a broader constitutional pitch: Ed Davey’s call for a new Magna Carta – a written constitution enshrining the rule of law, human rights, and the NHS – framed as a direct defence against the rise of Reform.
Reform UK is campaigning on cutting council waste, banning DEI roles, and scrapping net-zero commitments, alongside proposals to abolish indefinite leave to remain – pledges that are already taking shape in practice. Research from the Grantham Institute found that Reform-led councils have begun winding down Climate Emergency Declarations, a trend likely to accelerate as the party is expected to take control of further authorities in May.
The Conservatives’ “Plan for Drivers” commits to ending blanket 20mph limits, freeing up bus lanes, and clearing the driving test backlog, alongside a “New Deal for Young People” promising 100,000 additional apprenticeships for 18–21-year-olds by lifting funding caps and offering employers up to £5,000 per British apprentice hired. On the economy, the party is also pledging to abolish business rates for thousands of high street businesses, including pubs and shops, framing both as part of a wider plan to build a stronger local economy.
In a council without a majority, these positions become the starting points for negotiation. The wider the gap, the harder it is to create and sustain a coherent policy trajectory over the four-year electoral cycle.
Patchwork politics and policy pressures
Where control changes entirely, the pressure on policy takes a different form. The issue is no longer sustaining decisions across multiple stages, but the interruption created when a new administration arrives with a different strategic lens.
Durham County Council illustrates this clearly. After Reform UK gained control in 2025, one of its first decisions was to withdraw the council’s Climate Emergency Declaration. Statutory responsibilities were unchanged, but the strategic signal was immediate: priorities had shifted, and programmes associated with the previous Labour-leaning agenda would need to be reconsidered. The question became not only which new policies to introduce, but which existing ones would continue, be adapted, or fall away.
This is the second way elections reshape policy: by removing or weakening the political sponsorship behind work already underway. Delivery teams often experience this as a pause while new leadership reassesses direction. Projects slow, scopes shift, and initiatives that previously had momentum become uncertain, even where they remain technically viable.
What makes 2026 notable is that both pressures – policy fragility in fragmented authorities and policy interruption when control changes – are likely to become more common simultaneously.
Recent YouGov projections for London highlight this shift. Labour’s projected vote share, around 26 percent, would be its lowest in almost 50 years, while both the Greens and Reform UK are polling competitively across multiple boroughs and could emerge as the largest group in places where they have never led. The result could be a patchwork political map of Labour, Green, Reform, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat‑led councils, many with control resting on fine margins.
For councils, the significance lies not in any one result but in the policymaking environment that follows. Tight margins expose policy to renegotiation. Changes in control expose it to interruption. When both pressures are present, the likelihood of having to revisit, adjust, or re‑secure policies mid‑delivery increases sharply.
This is especially important in places undergoing local government reorganisation, where decisions taken this year will shape the structures and financial baselines of successor authorities. In such contexts, stability matters as much as the decision itself.
The morning after: policy under pressure
Local government is used to complexity, but the 2026 elections shift the question from whether decisions can be made to whether they can endure. This year’s story may matter less for who wins on the night than for what happens to policy once the ballots are counted. Turnout is often low in local elections, but with margins this tight, the stakes are far higher than usual. Choosing whether – and how – to vote will directly shape the direction of policy. With councils balanced on a knife edge, every vote shapes where the blade falls and which policies are cut away.
If you wish to understand more about how Dods Research can provide the tools to help you engage with the new policy environments after the local or devolved elections, or how we can help you engage with Westminster, please email our Business Development Team.