West Sussex
English county awaiting a local government reorganisation decision due October 2026.
An English county of around 900,000 people whose eventual shape, election timetable and vesting day all remain unset, unlike the 14 counties reorganised elsewhere in the same programme.
Last refreshed: 3 August 2026
Timeline for West Sussex
Received an October 2026 decision date
UK Local Elections 2026: Staffing councils whose boundaries do not existBackground
West Sussex is an English county in South East England with a population of around 900,000, sitting within the Sussex and Brighton Devolution Priority Programme area. That programme's elected combined-authority mayor has separately been postponed to May 2028.
The county remains one of only two areas nationally, alongside Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Left without a confirmed future administrative shape when the rest of the government's reorganisation programme was settled in July 2026.
A county left without a confirmed boundary
West Sussex, a two-tier county of roughly 900,000 people, sits within the Sussex and Brighton Devolution Priority Programme area, whose own elected mayor has separately been pushed back to May 2028. That leaves residents facing uncertainty on two fronts at once: no confirmed future council boundary and no confirmed devolved mayor either, with neither timetable yet resolved.
Five counties elsewhere in the same reorganisation wave still had judicial reviews pending as of 22 July, any of which could still redraw boundaries already confirmed for other areas; West Sussex's position stays open regardless of how those cases land, since no decision has been taken for it either way.