Think of a family in Peacehaven, or a retired couple in Telscombe, or a young person starting out in East Saltdean. They go about their lives, pay their council tax, use their local services, and trust that the people making decisions about those services are accountable to them. Now imagine being told that, very shortly, those services, that governance, and that accountability could be transferred to Brighton and Hove, and that the window for saying anything meaningful about it has already almost closed. That is where we are today.
A consultation in name only
The government’s local government reorganisation programme set a submission deadline of 15 June 2026. That has left the affected communities of Peacehaven, Telscombe and East Saltdean a remarkably short time in which to understand, debate and respond to proposals that will shape their lives for decades. A recent public meeting, convened by Lewes District Council, was the main opportunity for residents to hear the arguments and put their questions. It did not go well.
My colleague and fellow East Sussex County Councillor, Steve Chapman sought to attend that meeting as panel participants, in order to represent the communities we were elected to serve. We were refused seats at the table and directed to sit in the public gallery instead. This was not a minor procedural matter. It raises a serious question about whether the councils organising this process are genuinely committed to hearing all elected voices, or only those that are convenient to them.
The meeting itself was chaotic. It was dominated by a small number of participants who were evidently and strongly in favour of absorption into Brighton and Hove. There are reasonable grounds to question whether all of them were actually from the communities directly affected. Public meetings about the future of Peacehaven and Telscombe should reflect the views of people who live there. When the loudest voices in the room appear to come from elsewhere, something has gone wrong.
Brighton and Hove’s leadership sent no senior representative to make the case in person, and yet the direction of the meeting was shaped heavily in their favour. At a critical moment, attendees were asked to raise their hands if they wanted another meeting with Brighton and Hove included. A majority did so. Whether that reflected enthusiasm for merger, or simply a reasonable wish for more information, it was a remarkable way to conduct what was presented as a formal public consultation.
What do residents actually think?
During the recent county council election campaign, there were many conversations with residents across Peacehaven and Telscombe about their lives, their concerns and their priorities. Local government reorganisation barely registered. When the subject was raised directly, most people had not heard of it. When the proposal was explained, very few could identify any clear benefit to themselves or their communities. That is not an argument in itself against change. People cannot be expected to follow every development in Whitehall policy. But it is a powerful argument against treating a chaotic and poorly attended public meeting as any kind of mandate.
The question of whether residents actually want this has never been properly put to them. It should be.
And when residents have been asked, the answer has been unambiguous. In summer 2025, Lewes District Council and East Sussex County Council ran a specific consultation on Brighton and Hove’s proposed expansion into the Lewes district. The results showed overwhelming opposition. That process was accompanied by an online petition objecting to the takeover which gathered more than 6,500 signatures. Six and a half thousand people in this area took the trouble to sign a petition saying no. That is not a marginal result. It is a clear and emphatic statement of local feeling that any government genuinely interested in listening to communities would treat as decisive.
The questions that matter
Setting aside the process: is the merger itself the right answer? That is the question residents deserve to have answered properly, with evidence, with time to digest it, and with access to honest assessments from both sides.
On finances, the case for merging with Brighton and Hove is far from clear. Brighton and Hove carries significant budget pressures of its own. Residents in Peacehaven and Telscombe are entitled to ask whether their council tax and service standards would improve or deteriorate under a new arrangement, and to see the numbers that support the answer.
On services and quality of life, these are coastal and semi-rural communities with very different needs, identities and pressures from a city. Planning, transport, social care priorities and housing pressures are not the same on both sides of the proposed boundary. Merging governance structures does not automatically align community needs, and the assumption that it does needs to be challenged.
And on democratic representation, smaller communities risk losing their voice inside a larger authority. The residents of Peacehaven did not vote to be absorbed into Brighton. Whether they want to be should be a genuine question, not a foregone conclusion.
Who benefits, and why now?
It is worth asking a straightforward question: who actually needs this merger to happen? The answer is instructive. Brighton and Hove cannot complete its own reorganisation into a larger unitary authority without absorbing additional population from neighbouring areas. These communities are not incidental to Brighton’s plans; they are arithmetically necessary to them. Beyond that, the absorption of more residents and more land would directly assist Brighton and Hove in meeting its housing delivery targets, something the Labour administration there is under significant pressure to deliver. The 33 Labour councillors who run Brighton and Hove City Council have every political incentive to support this option. That does not make it wrong. But it does mean that any claimed benefits to our communities need to be demonstrated independently, not simply assumed.
It is also worth noting that this reorganisation process was initiated by a Labour minister in Westminster, and that the option most convenient to Labour’s political interests at both local and national level is the one being pushed through on the tightest possible timetable. The minister who wrote to council leaders on 12 May to launch this latest consultation is a Labour MP. The Secretary of State who has overseen the process is Labour. Brighton and Hove is run by Labour. One does not need to be especially cynical to notice the pattern. The driving force behind this particular boundary change is not what is best for the people of Peacehaven. It is what is politically convenient for the Labour Party at every level of government.
A consultation the government would rather you forgot
There is something else that residents deserve to know. This is not the first time their views have been sought on this question. The government ran its own statutory consultation between 19 November 2025 and 11 January 2026, inviting residents, organisations and stakeholders to give their views on proposals for reorganising local government across the county. That consultation received thousands of responses. Those results have never been published.
Read that again. The government conducted a formal public consultation, gathered the responses, and has chosen not to tell anyone what those responses said. Instead it has simply launched another consultation on essentially the same question, with a tighter deadline and less time for people to engage. Lewes District Council has raised this directly, pointing out that communities are being asked to restate views that the government already holds but has chosen not to release. That is not how a government that respects its own consultation process behaves. It raises a deeply uncomfortable question about why those results have been withheld, and whether what they showed is the reason a second consultation became necessary.
The answer, one suspects, is not complicated. When 6,500 people sign a petition opposing a boundary change and a formal government consultation produces results so inconvenient they cannot be published, the instinct of a government determined to press ahead regardless is to ask the question again, differently, more quickly, in the hope of a different answer.
What residents deserve
The position here is straightforward. Change is not being opposed if change is genuinely in residents’ interests. But that judgement should be made on evidence, not expedience, and it should be made with real community engagement, not a timetable so compressed that meaningful participation is almost impossible.
The 15th of June deadline is upon us. The consultation has been inadequate. Brighton and Hove’s leadership has not come to these communities to make its case in person. Elected representatives were blocked from participating in formal discussions. A previous government consultation produced results that have never been shared. And the communities at the centre of this decision are still waiting for the honest, evidenced, open conversation they were promised and deserve.
That conversation should have started a year ago. It has barely started now. Before any decision is taken that cannot be undone, the residents of Peacehaven, Telscombe and East Saltdean deserve to be properly heard.
This government has shown, on more than one occasion, that when public opinion is sufficiently clear and the political cost of ignoring it becomes too high, it is capable of thinking again. The people of this area have already spoken once, loudly and clearly. If enough of them speak again before 15 June, there is every reason to believe that the weight of evidence will become impossible to set aside. Every response to this consultation is a statement that this community will not simply be reorganised away for someone else’s political convenience.
How to have your say before 15 June 2026
Time is short, but there is still an opportunity to make your voice count. The government is running an official consultation and every response matters. Here is how to respond:
Online: Respond directly to the government consultation at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/modified-proposals-for-local-government-reorganisation-in-east-sussex-and-brighton-and-hove. The consultation closes at 11.59pm on 15 June 2026.
Paper copy: Printed versions of the survey are available to pick up at any East Sussex County Council library.
Whatever your view of the proposal, please use it. Silence is not a neutral act when a decision of this magnitude is being made on your behalf.
Tracy Pedro
Reform UK, East Sussex County Councillor for Peacehaven
May 2026
