Why Major Local Governance Changes in the UK Should Require Public Referendums

When the UK government decides to change the structure of local governance, the effects are deep and long-lasting. Whether it’s replacing county and district councils with unitary authorities, creating new combined authorities, or reallocating democratic responsibilities such as police oversight, these reforms reshape how communities are represented and how decisions are made.

These changes do not happen often — but when they do, they are significant. They redefine who local people vote for, where power sits, and how accountable local leaders are. They alter budgets, boundaries, democratic roles, and the relationship between residents and their local government.

Yet despite the scale of these decisions, the public is rarely given a direct say.

Consultations may be held, but consultations are not consent. They are not binding. They do not carry the weight of a democratic mandate. In practice, central government can approve these restructures whether local people support them or not.

This creates a democratic gap: local governance can be fundamentally changed without local approval.

Local government is where democracy meets everyday life. It shapes services people rely on, from social care and transport to planning, waste, libraries, and community safety. It defines local identity — counties, districts, towns and places that people feel connected to.

When those structures are altered or abolished, something meaningful changes. Representation may become more distant. Accountability may become more diluted. Local identity can be weakened. Even if a reform brings benefits, the community should not be treated as a bystander.

Public consent isn’t just a courtesy — it is a democratic necessity.

An Imbalance in how democracy is applied an example of this in some areas of local governance, the public must vote. A neighbourhood plan, for example, cannot take effect without a referendum. Parish governance changes often require a direct democratic decision.

Yet much larger reforms — the types that reshape entire councils or transfer major democratic responsibilities — do not require one.

That imbalance is hard to justify. If a neighbourhood plan needs a vote, surely the abolition of a whole tier of local government, or the creation of a combined authority covering hundreds of thousands of people, deserves a vote even more.

A legal requirement is needed to deliver the democratic power to the people on such changes to the governance that they live with. The solution is legislation should set that any major change to local governance should automatically trigger a binding public referendum.

This would apply to changes such as:

Creating or expanding combined authorities

Abolishing district or county councils

Establishing new unitary authorities

Reassigning major democratic functions to new bodies

A referendum requirement would not block reform; it would legitimise it. It would give governments the chance to make their case openly and honestly — and give communities the power to approve or reject the changes that reshape their representation.

Such a safeguard would restore trust, strengthen democratic accountability, and ensure that local governance is changed with the public, not simply applied to them.

Local governance change does not often get national attention, but when it changes, it changes the foundation of how people are represented and how local decisions are made. These are not small adjustments. They are constitutional shifts at a community level.

If such changes are to happen, they must happen with democratic consent.

A referendum requirement is not about slowing progress — it is about grounding local government reform in legitimacy and public trust. If the public is expected to live with the consequences of a governance change for decades, then they should have the right to decide it.

Local democracy belongs to local people. It’s time the law recognised that.