Essex County Council announces legal challenge to plans for Local Government Reorganisation
News / Thu 14th May 2026 at 05:57am
THE leader of Essex County Council’s Reform Group, Councillor Peter Harris, has today (13 May) written to Steve Reed MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, indicating that the council intends to issue a legal challenge to the Government on its plans for Local Government Reorganisation in Greater Essex.
In the letter, Councillor Harris informs the Secretary of State he is “unequivocally opposed to the principle of your proposals.”
He continues: “We will utilise all resources at our disposal to challenge and resist LGR. Accordingly, as my first formal action as Reform UK group leader at Essex, I yesterday instructed that lawyers prepare a pre-action protocol letter to you which I already have in my possession and, subject to my group’s approval, will be sending to you later this week in order to formalise our objections.”
Nicholas Taylor
2026-05-14 08:23:51
Well this could be the first test of Sir Kier Starmer's pledge to listen to the public and respond to what happened at the elections last week. I wonder if our MP will support this challenge?
David Forman
2026-05-14 12:02:31
I am still waiting for Chris Vince to condemn his faction's dirty tricks in trying to smear journalists with false allegations. After all, given a free press is a cornerstone of democracy and Vince was very happy to wrap himself up with Amnesty International prior to the general election one would consider condemning underhand attempts to discredit journalists would be straightforward.
David Forman
2026-05-14 12:12:01
As my earliest has been removed, I will have to explain the context of my previous comment. Chris Vince and Wes Streeting are part of the Labour Together faction and it having been the instigators of Starmer's rise to leadership, they now need to replace him with one of their own: Wes Streeting. The scandal surrounding Labour Together is explained by Brentwood Conservative MP Alex Burghart in House of Commons on February 23 this year: "While he was the director of the think-tank Labour Together, the now Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), paid a PR agency to investigate the “backgrounds and motivations” of British journalists who had written about Labour Together’s breaches of electoral law, of which there were many—more than 20, the most famous being a failure to declare £730,000-worth of donations. The agency produced a report that included an allegation that the journalists in question had relied on Russian hacking. Needless to say, those reports were entirely spurious." https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-02-23/debates/5A26759F-4847-4972-8383-B3FCC679B9AB/details
Seamus
2026-05-14 12:49:49
This could be an ideal opportunity for Harlow's Conservative council and the Reform Essex county council to work together to stop this unrequested change.
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