Plans to create the new Ridgeway Council, bringing together West Berkshire with most of South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse, have been paused after the government ordered a review of its local government reorganisation programme.
The decision throws fresh uncertainty over a major restructuring of local government in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire, just weeks after ministers confirmed that the new authority would be created from April 2028.
The government announced on 07 September that all 14 local government reorganisation decisions made in July would be reviewed. The move follows updated legal advice and comes as ministers reassess whether the reorganisation programme is legally robust and consistent with the priorities of the new government.
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The plans for Ridgeway have not been formally cancelled. Instead, implementation work has been paused while the review takes place.
The government has separately withdrawn earlier decisions concerning Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner said the review was intended to ensure that the reorganisation process was robust, complied with the law and reflected the priorities of the new government and prime minister.
For Oxfordshire and West Berkshire, the development comes less than two months after the government confirmed that the existing seven councils would be replaced by three new unitary authorities from 01 April 2028.
Under that decision, Ridgeway Council would cover West Berkshire together with most of South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse. The other two authorities would be Greater Oxford and Northern Oxfordshire.
The three-council structure had been selected from proposals submitted to the government in November 2025 following a statutory consultation earlier this year.
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The reorganisation was intended to replace the existing county and district arrangements with larger unitary authorities responsible for the full range of local government services, including housing, planning, waste collection, roads and social care.
West Berkshire Council leader Jeff Brooks said the council hoped the uncertainty would be resolved soon.
“Hundreds of officer hours and tens of thousands of pounds have already been spent on this,” he said, adding that elections were due to take place in May next year and warning that a prolonged delay could create significant disruption.
The government has confirmed that those elections will go ahead in May 2027 on the existing council boundaries, rather than the proposed new unitary boundaries.
That creates a potentially unusual transition. Councillors will be elected on the current structures while the future shape of local government remains under review.
Before today’s announcement, councils across Oxfordshire and West Berkshire had been preparing for the transition. West Oxfordshire District Council described the proposed reorganisation as the biggest change to local government since the current county and district system was established in 1974.
The pause therefore leaves councils facing an awkward question: how much preparatory work should continue while ministers reconsider a decision that had appeared settled?
For residents across South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse, the implications extend beyond council boundaries on a map. The proposed unitary authority would be responsible for services currently delivered through different tiers of local government, changing how decisions about planning, housing, waste, roads and social care are made.
The government has said it wants the review to move quickly, but has not yet set out when a final decision on the July reorganisations will be made.
For now, the Ridgeway plan remains alive but suspended — leaving one of the biggest changes to local government in the Oxfordshire area facing an unexpected second chapter.
Reporting contribution by Niki Hinman, Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) covering local politics and the impact of political decisions on people’s lives.
