Letter: Holding the 2025 SCC Elections Would Have Allowed the Debt Issue To Have Been Properly Debated

Published on: 30 Apr, 2026
Updated on: 1 May, 2026

From George Potter

Liberal Democrat borough and county councillor

In response to: Some of Us Are Certainly Taking the Debt Issue Seriously

Labour have two county councillors within Surrey. Both voted, and argued, enthusiastically for pressing ahead with LGR (Local Government Reorganisation) as quickly as possible and voted to cancel the 2025 county council elections.

I would agree that Labour, at a national level, can’t be especially faulted for failing to deal with the debt, given the last Conservative government similarly failed to do so (and despite having multiple chancellors of the exchequer who were Surrey MPs). However, they can be blamed for agreeing to the request to cancel elections and for believing that LGR efficiency savings would enable the debt burden to be contained within Surrey.

But the biggest responsibility has to be with those county councillors, from the Conservatives, Labour and Residents Parties (though not R4GV), who voted for the cancellation of the 2025 county elections.

If those elections had gone ahead then LGR, and the debt, would have been the key issue in those elections, and a newly elected county council would have been in a much better position to negotiate about the debt as part of the LGR process.

As it is, we have sped through the LGR process at break-neck speed, in order to justify the cancellation of elections, without the county council challenging the government to deal with the debt. And that is what I fault Surrey Labour and Surrey Conservatives both for.

Responses to Letter: Holding the 2025 SCC Elections Would Have Allowed the Debt Issue To Have Been Properly Debated

Patrick Bray Reply

May 1, 2026 at 9:18 am

I agree. However is there anything that we could do now to improve this situation?

I feel or fear that we are resigned to this debacle but are we just hand wringing and missing any route of legally challenging the current situation or to significantly delay it for further review?

Can this question be brought to a national level, possibly by our local MPs tabling questions in the House of Commons?

Admittedly, I have failed to write to my MP on the matter but perhaps we could all do something now. Could The Dragon support with a template letter for those both for and against this reorganisation?

Editor’s response: Our editorial policy is not to engage in campaigns and, in any case, I am afraid everyone here, on our small team of volunteers, is fully stretched. But if you, or someone, writes in with such a template we will consider publishing.