Voters in 46 NSW local councils will be voting on September 9 to elect new councils.
The rest of the state voted last September, but elections were postponed in all of those councils which had either been amalgamated or had an amalgamation pending.
Amalgamations have been cancelled in a series of regional councils, so these existing councils will hold regular elections in September.
There are twenty newly-amalgamated councils which will hold their first elections: eleven in Sydney and nine in regional NSW.
The state government is planning to amalgamated fourteen Sydney councils into five new councils, but these plans have been delayed by various court cases. Unless these amalgamations take place in the next few months, the unamalgamated councils are due to hold elections this year.
I’ve prepared guides for eleven of the biggest councils holding elections. These are the eleven councils with populations over 100,000 which are not still facing amalgamations.
- Bayside
- Canterbury-Bankstown
- Central Coast
- Cumberland
- Georges River
- Inner West
- Newcastle
- Northern Beaches
- Parramatta
- The Hills
- Wollongong
Eight of these councils are new creations. Newcastle and Wollongong survived amalgamation plans, while the Hills had its election delayed after losing its southern tip to the City of Parramatta, but has mostly survived intact.
There are four councils which are still under the threat of amalgamation which have a population of over 100,000: Hornsby, Ku-ring-gai, Randwick and Ryde. I would normally write profiles for these councils, but have held off due to amalgamation plans. I may add profiles of these four councils if I have time before September.
Each profile contains information on the history of each constituent council, the council wards, and recent election results. I will gradually be updating each profile with candidate information as we get closer to election day.
You can also use this map to see which councils are facing election, and to click through to the guide for the eleven councils listed above:
One last note: of the fourteen councils which are still facing potential amalgamation, thirteen will use the same wards as in 2012. The only exception is Hornsby, which was required to redraw its wards after it lost a large area to Parramatta. I have now added in the updated Hornsby wards and uploaded a complete version of the ward map for the 2016-2017 council elections. You can download it at the maps page.
