The government paused West Sussex reorganisation on 7 September with no timetable. Mid Sussex was to join a 566,000-person unitary with Crawley and Horsham.

The government has paused the programme that would abolish Mid Sussex District Council, and has given no date for deciding what happens next.

Jim McMahon MP, the local government minister, wrote to council leaders on 7 September announcing a review of the whole local government reorganisation programme. West Sussex is named in it. His letter says councils where decisions have already been taken should stop implementation work, and that elections scheduled for May 2027 will now go ahead to existing council boundaries rather than to new authorities.

What was on the table for Mid Sussex

Reorganisation means replacing the current two tiers, Mid Sussex District Council and West Sussex County Council, with a single unitary council covering everything.

Seven West Sussex district and borough councils, Mid Sussex among them, submitted a two-unitary proposal on 26 September 2025. The county council argued instead for a single unitary covering the whole of West Sussex.

In May 2026 the government consulted on a modified version of the districts’ plan. It would create:

  • Authority A: Arun, Adur and Worthing, population around 349,000
  • Authority B: Crawley, Chichester, Horsham and Mid Sussex, population around 566,000

That consultation ran from 12 May to 15 June 2026. It came after a seven week statutory consultation between 19 November 2025 and 11 January 2026 that drew 3,828 responses. The government said the modification was meant to test whether new councils would better reflect “distinct communities and rural/coastal identities” while keeping the balance under the mayoral combined authority.

The two unitary councils proposed for West Sussex under the government’s modified option Two bars. Authority A, covering Arun, Adur and Worthing, would have a population of about 349,000. Authority B, covering Crawley, Chichester, Horsham and Mid Sussex, would have about 566,000. Both are now paused pending a government review. Mid Sussex would sit in the bigger of the two proposed councils The modified two unitary option consulted on 12 May to 15 June 2026. Source: MHCLG, Modified proposals for local government reorganisation in West Sussex. Authority A Arun, Adur, Worthing about 349,000 people

Authority B Crawley, Chichester, Horsham, Mid Sussex about 566,000 people Both would replace Mid Sussex District Council and West Sussex County Council with a single tier. Neither has been decided. The government paused the programme on 7 September 2026 and set no date for the review. The county council argued instead for one unitary covering the whole of West Sussex. Graphic by Mid Sussex News

The timetable that kept slipping

  • 26 September 2025: two competing proposals submitted for West Sussex.
  • 25 March 2026: the Secretary of State announced no decision yet, citing concerns about all four proposals across West Sussex, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove.
  • 12 May to 15 June 2026: further consultation on the modified two-unitary option.
  • July 2026: a decision was expected. Ministers deferred it.
  • 7 September 2026: the programme is paused and put under review.

What the letter actually says

The March decisions for four other areas, Essex with Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, Hampshire with the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton, Norfolk, and Suffolk, have been withdrawn on updated legal advice.

The review will also look again at the 14 decisions made in July. On the two areas still waiting, the letter is explicit: “Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and West Sussex, where decisions have not yet been taken, will be considered as part of the review.”

The new councils for East Surrey and West Surrey are unaffected, because they are already established in law.

The minister writes that “now is the time to pause and reflect”, and that stopping implementation work “reduces the risk of nugatory work if, after further review, we decide to change course”. He gives no date for the review reporting, saying only that he will ensure next steps are communicated “early and clearly”.

The councils are unimpressed

West Sussex’s councils issued a joint statement the same day. It says no timeline has been given for when the review will be carried out or concluded, and that a process running for more than eighteen months still has no answer.

“We are frustrated by the latest news and will be meeting with ministers to understand what is behind this decision and what the timetable is for going forward,” the statement says. It adds that the councils’ immediate concern is keeping staff and councillors informed “in what continues to be an unsettling time for them”, and urges the government to “finalise the details on the LGR programme so we can finally know when this will be happening”.

Mid Sussex has been paying for this

The cost of the work shows up in the council’s own accounts. The Budget Management report going to Cabinet on Monday 14 September proposes putting £215k of this year’s better than expected investment returns into the Project and Efficiency reserve, specifically to cover support costs for projects “including LGR and the Joint Venture”.

The same report says extra staff have been needed in legal, finance, communications, HR and planning, and that market constraints have made specialist reorganisation expertise hard to hire. We have covered the rest of that report separately.

That report was published on 4 September, three days before the minister’s letter. It still states the old position: that the implementation timetable was unchanged, with elections to shadow authorities expected in 2027 and new unitary councils going live in 2028. Both of those dates are now in doubt.

Devolution is a separate thing, and it is not paused

Reorganisation is often confused with devolution. They are two different processes.

The Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority, a partnership of West Sussex County Council, East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council, is already running, with elections for its first mayor due in 2028. At its first annual general meeting on 1 July 2026 it said it had unlocked access to £117m for the region. Nothing in the minister’s letter changes that.

What it means for you

  • Nothing changes for your bins, council tax or planning application. Mid Sussex District Council continues to run the services it runs today. Bin days are on our bin collection days page and bands on our council tax bands page.
  • May 2027 elections go ahead to existing boundaries. The council’s own upcoming elections page currently lists town and parish elections for May 2027.
  • There is no new deadline to watch. The government has not said when the review will report. If you want to follow it, the council’s committee papers and the West Sussex County Council reorganisation page are where it will surface first.

Sources