Mayor and local government changes in Sussex explained

Find out about the powers of a new Mayor for Sussex; the responsibilities of the four new unitary authorities; the role of the Mayoral Combined County Authority; and how the changes could affect the Sussex countryside.

The bitesize view

• A new mayor for all of Sussex is expected to be elected in 2028.
• They will have lots of new powers, including on transport and strategic planning.
• At the same time, local government reorganisation (LGR) would also mean four new council unitary authorities – Brighton & Hove, East Sussex and two for West Sussex (the division of which has been undecided.)
• Work on Sussex LGR has now been paused, to enable a central government review of the wider LGR programme.
• There’s a real risk that nature, climate and the countryside will be sidelined in favour of growth-at-all-costs amongst increasing change and centralised power.

What’s changing in Sussex?

Sussex is undergoing a major transformation in how decisions are made and services are delivered. As part of a national devolution programme, the UK Government approved the creation of a Mayoral Combined County Authority (MCCA) for Sussex, which covers East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton & Hove.

As well as the creation of the MCCA, the government also proposed a reorganisation of local government in Sussex. This will see the current two-tier system of councils replaced with four new unitary authorities that will be broadly aligned with West Sussex (divided in two), Brighton & Hove, and East Sussex. Proposals for these authority boundaries were submitted by the existing Sussex local authorities.

Elections for the first-ever directly elected Mayor (who would lead the MCCA) were originally scheduled for May 2026, but these have been delayed until 2028. The reason given by the government was that Sussex is undergoing both devolution and local government reorganisation at the same time, and ministers wanted to complete the creation of new unitary councils before electing a mayor.

In July 2026, the government said it wanted to defer its decision on the West Sussex unitary authority boundary, requesting further consideration. Then in September, the government announced a pause and review of the wider LGR programme – including East Sussex and Brighton & Hove.

In April 2026, the Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority formally began operating. This meant that Sussex had gained the devolved governance structure before electing a mayor. This authority is being governed by existing council leaders and representatives pending the 2028 mayoral election.

Plans to hold elections for the new unitary council authorities in May 2027 have been cancelled and replaced by elections for new councillors in the existing Districts and Boroughs (where those elections would be due.)

Sussex should elect its first-ever directly elected Mayor in 2028. Many parts of England already have a similar model.

What will the Sussex mayor do?

The new Mayor of Sussex will have significant powers and responsibilities, including:

• Transport – improving public transport, roads, and connectivity across the region
• Strategic Planning – shaping housing strategy and investment, including affordable housing
• Economic Growth – attracting investment, supporting jobs and skills development
• Climate and Environment – leading on sustainability, nature protection, and climate resilience
• Public Health and Safety – coordinating services that affect wellbeing and community safety

These powers were previously split between local councils and central government.

Not all of these powers and duties have equal weight. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, the government paper which sets out the core competencies of the new mayor, lists ‘economic growth’ 54 times. ‘Climate’ is mentioned once, and nature is not mentioned at all.

What about these new unitary authorities?

The government proposed a Local Government Reorganisation programme in Sussex (as well as other parts of the UK), in their  English Devolution White Paper of December 2024.

LGR would mean replacing the current two-tier system (county and district/borough councils) with new unitary authorities — single councils responsible for all local services.

Existing local authorities submitted their preferred proposals to government in 2025. East Sussex and West Sussex County Councils proposed a single unitary each, aligned with current boundaries, though the District Councils in West Sussex  opted for a two-unitary proposal. Brighton & Hove put forward an alternative model of five unitaries (roughly two each for East and West Sussex, with Brighton & Hove expanding to cover the coastal strip towards Newhaven.)

Central government was expected to decide the exact number and boundaries of these new councils in spring 2026.

Elsewhere, various counties in the UK had launched Judicial Reviews (JR) against LGR programmes in their area.  Central government then announced a review of the LGR programme in September 2026. The Sussex council reorganisation is now paused while that review takes place.

This means that all decisions on unitary authority boundaries are on hold. There is currently no change to existing councils and the government has not given a timetable for the completion of the review. The government has also confirmed that the local elections scheduled for May 2027 will proceed on the existing council boundaries.

What is the MCCA?

The MCCA (Mayoral Combined County Authority) is a new strategic body that brings together Sussex’s councils and is chaired by the Sussex Mayor. It will focus on big-picture issues like infrastructure, housing, and climate, coordinating services and funding across Sussex, while councils will continue to deliver day-to-day services like waste collection, schools, and social care.

Initially, the MCCA will be made up of the mayor plus representatives from the current upper-tier councils (East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council and Brighton & Hove City Council.) Once the new unitary authority councils are in place, their representatives will sit, alongside the mayor, on the MCCA instead.

The English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill (2025) outlines how powers and funding will be transferred from central government to this new local authority. However, central government are not planning to provide additional funding to local authorities. The real change will be in who makes strategic decisions on spending. Under the new powers, these decisions will be made by the MCCA under the stewardship of the mayor, rather than Whitehall. But there is also a movement of decision-making ‘upwards’, away from the truly local. Power will lie with the more centralised MCCA, and its unitary members, rather than with the district and borough councils we have at present.

The role of parish and town councils in this new model is rather unclear. The government says it wants new unitaries to “hardwire local community engagement into their own structures, through approaches like neighbourhood Area Committees.” No changes are proposed for existing town and parish councils, but it looks likely that they will be given some additional local responsibilities that are currently performed by district councils.

Why does this matter?

The Mayor

These changes will affect how decisions are made about housing, transport, nature, and climate — issues that shape the future of Sussex and the countryside that we all love.

The new mayor will have welcome new powers to plan at a strategic level, looking across the whole of Sussex – something that’s been missing for around fifteen years. They could play a powerful role in joining up public and sustainable transport – like rural buses – across Sussex too.  If they are also real champions of social housing that meets local needs, this could be a great opportunity to take a ‘big picture’ look at what needs to go where and allow for effective infrastructure investment.

They could also use their powers to champion the countryside, rural communities, protect green spaces, and ensure that development is sustainable and community-led. But will they?

CPRE Sussex is concerned that the powers of the Mayor and their Combined County Authority put the environment right at the bottom of the list. The government’s focus is on growth, particularly in terms of economy and housing, at the expense of all other priorities. We believe that growth should not be at any cost, especially the cost of nature and green spaces. The countryside is not a ‘blocker’ to economic growth – it is an asset for us all, and a vital, beautiful part of the world in which we live. With a significant part of Sussex’s economy dependent on agriculture and tourism, real growth should come about as part of sustainable development that will not destroy the Sussex countryside that we love, for generations to come.

As part of the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition, CPRE has been urging the government to bring stronger duties on nature and climate into the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which creates the new Mayoral authorities. This is crucial to ensure that the countryside does not get lost in the shuffle.

The LGR

We also believe that the new local government structure has the real danger of taking decision-making away from the local people that those decisions affect. Sussex is a largely rural county, home to rural people with rural needs. There’s a real risk that if it’s done badly, the new MCCA and unitary authorities will see distant, largely urban, politicians taking decisions without regard to rural communities they don’t truly understand.

We also note that most rural districts (under the current system) have full parish councils in operation, whereas the boroughs (Eastbourne, Hastings and Worthing) do not. These borough councils do localised services such as allotment management and organising grass-cutting. We suggest that a big unitary authority is not going to have the time to do that for the areas where there is no parish council. Does this mean that parish councils will need to be created for these towns?

There is also further query around whether the LGR programme itself is sound – central government is now reviewing the programme, after various counties mounted legal challenges to the reorganisation itself.

In short – the CPRE Sussex view

We know that the Sussex countryside is already in danger – from greedy developers, climate change and destructive planning policies. Now, it is even further at risk. Centralising decision-making to Sussex urban centres, whilst taking power and choices away from our local communities is a terrifying prospect for a countryside already under threat. We believe that the current plans to create both a MCCA and these new unitary authorities run the very real risk of our green spaces, rural voices and countryside getting lost in the shuffle.