The leader of Burnley Council has called on the government to provide clarity over whether local elections in the borough will go ahead next year.

Afrasiab Anwar was speaking after it emerged that councils in other parts of Lancashire would be requesting the cancellation of the polls scheduled to take place in their areas, as a result of a forthcoming shake-up of the county’s local authorities.

Seven sets of elections are due in May 2026 across Lancashire – in the Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Preston and West Lancashire council areas, as well as Burnley.

All of those authorities – as well as the eight others in Lancashire that are not staging elections next year – are set to be abolished and replaced in April 2028 as part of a government-ordered overhaul to streamline the way local services are delivered.

As the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has recently revealed, Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley and Hyndburn are to seek the cancellation of the votes planned for next May on the basis that elections to ‘shadow’ versions of their larger replacement authorities will be held in May 2027 – and because of a claimed need for stability and continuity during the local government reorganisation process.

Preston City Council’s cabinet will next week decide whether to resolve to make the same move, with its leader, Matthew Brown, having already said he is “minded” to support doing so.

Only Pendle Council’s leader, David Whipp has so far said he wants voting to go ahead as planned. West Lancashire’s leadership has not commented.

While Cllr Anwar – who leads the independent coalition in charge of Burnley Council – would not be drawn specifically on whether he would want to follow the lead of those councils looking to pull the plug on next year’s polls, he said: “The official line from MHCLG [the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government] remains that the 2026 local elections shall take place as planned.

“If this is no longer the case, MHCLG need to let us know as soon as possible and provide cogent reasons for their change in position.”

The department previously told the LDRS that the “starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise”.

However, the government has previously cancelled local elections in other parts of the country where reorganisation is also taking place.