Stroud District Council will be abolished on 1 April 2028 and replaced by a single Gloucestershire Council. What changes for local services, and when you vote.

Stroud District Council will cease to exist on 1 April 2028. The government has decided that a single new unitary authority will run every council service in Gloucestershire, replacing the county council and all six district councils, including Stroud. The decision was announced in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 16 July, and confirmed to residents by the district council the same day.

The new authority will be called Gloucestershire Council, and residents across the district, from Stonehouse and Nailsworth to Dursley, Berkeley and Wotton-under-Edge, will elect the councillors who set it up at shadow authority elections on 6 May 2027.

One council instead of seven

The decision ends the two-tier system that has run local government here for half a century. Seven councils disappear on 1 April 2028: Gloucestershire County Council and the district councils for Stroud, Cheltenham, Cotswold, Forest of Dean, Gloucester and Tewkesbury. (Gloucestershire County Council, 16 July 2026)

The government said the single county-wide option best met its tests because it “provides a sensible geography for economic growth and housing”, makes it easier to deliver joined up public services, and offers “a good platform for community empowerment”. It follows the English Devolution White Paper of December 2024, which set out plans for new unitary councils serving populations of 500,000 or more. Three rival proposals were submitted by Gloucestershire’s councils in November 2025, one for a single county unitary, one splitting the county east and west, and one based on a Greater Gloucester, and a seven week public consultation closed on 26 March 2026. (Stroud District Council, reorganisation pages)

Stroud’s councillors backed the winning option, reluctantly

The government has chosen the option Stroud District Council itself supported. At its full council meeting on 20 November 2025, 27 of the 42 councillors present voted to back the single unitary proposal, 15 backed the east and west split, and none supported the Greater Gloucester model. (SDC letter to the Secretary of State, 28 November 2025)

The letter setting out that position, signed by council leader Chloe Turner, made clear the council’s support came with reservations: “We have not asked for Local Government Reorganisation.” It pointed to the council’s own satisfaction surveys, in which 92% of residents say they are happy with where they live, and warned of a “democratic deficit”, with fewer councillors serving more residents under every option on the table.

Councillors rejected the east and west split partly on financial grounds: the letter warned of a “deep financial divide” between the two, creating “two uneven unitary councils”, with the east “healthier and wealthier” than a western council containing Stroud, and “a significant deficit and lack of a balanced budget from day one”. The council also asked that, if a single unitary was chosen, it should be “constituted as a new council” with all seven existing authorities abolished rather than absorbed into the county council. That is what the government has now decided.

What happens between now and 2028

Timeline: the government announced a single unitary council for Gloucestershire on 16 July 2026, elections to a shadow authority follow on 6 May 2027, and Gloucestershire Council takes over on 1 April 2028 when Stroud District Council is abolished
The three dates that end Stroud District Council. Sources: Stroud District Council; Future Gloucestershire. Graphic by Stroud Today.

The shadow authority elected on 6 May 2027 will take the key decisions about the new council, including its first budget and how services are organised, before it formally takes over on vesting day, 1 April 2028. Until then all seven existing councils continue to run their services as normal, overseen by a joint transition programme of senior officers and councillors. (Future Gloucestershire)

On jobs, the councils’ joint programme says it is “too early to confirm specific staffing implications”, but that the aim is to transfer the vast majority of staff into the new organisation, with any initial redundancies “likely to be limited to the most senior positions”.

What it means for you

Nothing changes yet. The district council’s message to residents is direct: “At this stage, there will be no changes to council services which will be delivered as normal. Residents should continue to access these services in the way they normally would.” (Stroud District Council) Bins are still collected by the district, planning applications are still decided by it, and roads are still the county’s job.

From April 2028, one council does everything. Today the district council runs waste collection, planning, housing and homelessness prevention, environmental health, parks and leisure centres, while adult social care, children’s services, education and transport are already run on a county footprint. After vesting day a single Gloucestershire Council handles all of it, so there will be one authority to contact, whatever the issue.

Council tax decisions pass to the new council. The joint programme says there are no immediate changes planned, and that future council tax decisions will be made by the shadow council, taking effect from 1 April 2028. (Future Gloucestershire)

Your next big local vote is 6 May 2027. The councillors elected then will shape how the new authority works, and how loudly the Five Valleys are heard in a council that stretches from the Forest of Dean to the Cotswolds.

We will follow the transition, and what it means for services in the district, as the detail emerges.