Surrey (Structural Changes) Order 2026

The Surrey (Structural Changes) Order 2026 is a statutory instrument made by MHCLG under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Signed on 9 March 2026, it abolishes the existing 12 Surrey councils — Surrey County Council and its 11 district and borough councils — and establishes two successor unitary authorities: East Surrey Council (72 seats, 36 wards) and West Surrey Council (90 seats, 45 wards). The vesting day on which both councils acquire full legal powers is 1 April 2027.

The Order created the most constitutionally unusual feature of the 7 May 2026 elections: councillors elected under it serve on shadow authorities from May 2026 until April 2027, setting budgets and governance frameworks before the councils legally exist. Their five-year term runs to May 2031, without a conventional mid-term re-election. The Order accounts for exactly 162 of the approximately 5,013 English council seats contested on 7 May 2026 — the difference between the 4,851-seat count used by the Institute for Government (which excludes shadow elections) and the 5,013-seat count used by Democracy Club and the BBC (which includes them). Surrey's 12 existing councils dissolve on vesting day, ending structures in some cases dating to the 1974 local government reorganisation.

For election-night watchers the Order means 162 Surrey seats carry a delayed constitutional punch: whoever wins them governs shadow councils through 2026-27, shapes the unitary authorities' founding budgets and governance frameworks, then carries those decisions intact when East Surrey and West Surrey acquire full legal powers in April 2027. The party that wins Surrey on 7 May effectively sets the institutional DNA of both councils for their first decade.