The Office of Mayor of Spelthorne ends on 1 April 2027 unless ministers agree. Councillors vote on Monday, and a precept could reach bills from 2028.
Spelthorne councillors meet at 7pm on Monday 28 September to decide whether to ask the government to preserve the Office of Mayor of Spelthorne after the borough council is abolished.
If they do nothing, the mayoralty ends on 1 April 2027, the day Spelthorne Borough Council ceases to exist and becomes part of West Surrey Council. The council’s own report puts it plainly: the office, the chains, the robes, the mace and the tradition of appointing honorary freemen all go with it.
The meeting is an extraordinary one, called for a single item. The motion is proposed by Councillor Geach and seconded by Councillor Button, and asks the council to submit a request for charter trustees to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The deadline for that request is Wednesday 30 September, two days after the vote.
What charter trustees actually are
Charter trustees exist to hold a borough’s civic traditions when the council that held them is abolished and there is no parish or town council to take them on.
The report is clear about what they are not. Charter trustees are a non-political body with no decision-making powers. Their members are not separately elected: they are the West Surrey councillors who represent the former borough’s wards, who hold the office until the next election to West Surrey Council or until they stop being councillors. Each year they may elect a Mayor and Deputy Mayor from among themselves.
Spelthorne cannot create them. Only the Secretary of State can, through a section 7 order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, and the Charter Trustees Regulations 2009 set the detailed rules. The council’s report records the risk openly: the ministry may decide not to make the order.
The thing they would preserve dates from the day the council was created. Spelthorne Borough Council was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 and was given borough status from the outset, which is what allows the Chair of the Council to be called Mayor.
Why the whole borough is covered, and why that is unusual
Charter trustees cannot operate where a parish or town council already does. In most places that produces a patchwork, with parished villages carved out of the trustee area.
There are no parishes in the Borough of Spelthorne. The report states it twice, and Appendix 1 answers “No” to the question of whether a parish council covers the area. So the proposed charter trustee area is the entire borough, and the draft submission lists all 13 wards:
- Ashford Common
- Ashford East
- Ashford North and Stanwell South
- Ashford Town
- Halliford and Sunbury West
- Laleham and Shepperton Green
- Riverside and Laleham
- Shepperton Town
- Staines
- Staines South
- Stanwell North
- Sunbury Common
- Sunbury East
The draft submission also sets out what would be preserved under the Charter of Incorporation of 1 April 1974: the mayoralty itself, precedence at civic events, the wearing of mayoral insignia, the chains and robes of office, the official mace, the appointment of honorary freemen and use of the borough coat of arms.
Three things in the paper that do not line up
We read the report and the motion rather than the summary of them. Three details in the council’s own papers contradict each other, and one of them is in the document that would go to the ministry.
The draft submission names the wrong council. Appendix 1 describes the area as “the East Surrey Council Wards of” and then lists the 13 Spelthorne wards. Spelthorne is joining West Surrey Council, not East Surrey, as the same report says four times elsewhere.
The report gives two different deadlines. Paragraph 2.8 says the deadline for submission is 30 September 2026. Paragraph 15.1, the timetable for implementation, says the request is “to be submitted by no later than 30 September 2029”.
The report is headed for the wrong day. Both the heading on page two and the published filename date the meeting 29 September 2026. The agenda, the meetings calendar and the notice of the meeting all give Monday 28 September 2026.
None of this changes what is being asked for. It does mean anyone reading the paper before Monday should work from the agenda for the date and from paragraph 2.8 for the deadline.
What it could cost, and when
Nothing in the first year. The Charter Trustees Regulations 2009 let charter trustees ask West Surrey Council to meet the costs of their functions in the financial year they are established, and the report confirms West Surrey would pick up any reasonable costs in year one.
From year two onwards charter trustees become a local precepting authority and can levy a precept through the billing authority, which would appear on council tax bills.
The report gives the arithmetic. In most existing charter trustee areas the charge is between £2 and £4 a year on a Band D property. On Spelthorne’s tax base, £2 would raise about £83,000. Officers suggest a smaller figure would do: £1 at Band D would raise about £41,500, which the report says would potentially be enough to cover the likely administrative support costs.
West Surrey Council would also be responsible for providing the trustees with suitable accommodation, and officers may be appointed to support them.
The option that ran out of time
The report sets out four options, and the fourth is the one worth noticing.
A town or parish council could have been created for a defined area of Spelthorne through a Community Governance Review. That would have carried the civic traditions forward with a body that had real powers, rather than a ceremonial one that has none.
Officers say a review takes about 18 months, so it is “no longer a practical or viable option to be completed within the life of this Council”.
Charter trustees are the fallback, and Appendix 2 makes the relationship explicit: they would cease to exist if a parish or town council were later established for the area and took on the ceremonial functions.
The report was written by Linda Heron, the council’s Group Head of Corporate Governance and Monitoring Officer. It records commissioner engagement on 21 September, with the commissioners’ comment that the issue is not related to the improvement objectives and so does not require their review. Spelthorne has been under a Best Value intervention with four government-appointed commissioners since 8 May 2025, an intervention due to run until 31 May 2030.
What it means for you
- The meeting is public. Extraordinary Council, 7pm on Monday 28 September, in the Council Chamber at the Council Offices, Knowle Green, Staines-upon-Thames TW18 1XB.
- Questions have to be in early. The agenda asks for material questions to reach the committee chair and the officer contact, Karen Wyeth, two days before the meeting.
- A yes vote is not the end of it. The request goes to the ministry, and only the Secretary of State can make the order. The report says there is a real chance it is refused.
- Watch your 2028 bill, not your 2027 one. No precept can be charged in the first year. If one is set from year two, on the council’s own figures it would be somewhere around £1 to £4 a year at Band D.
- This does not change any service. Charter trustees have no decision-making powers. Bins, planning, council tax collection and housing all transfer to West Surrey Council on 1 April 2027 regardless of what happens on Monday.
For what you pay now and in which band, see our Staines council tax bands page, and Staines planning news tracks the decisions the borough is still taking in its final months.
Sources
- Agenda for the extraordinary meeting of Spelthorne Borough Council, Monday 28 September 2026, read 24 September 2026, for the date, time, venue, items and officer contact.
- Item 3a, Motion, Charter Trustees, for the wording of the motion and the proposer and seconder.
- Item 3b, Charter Trustees for the Borough of Spelthorne, report by Linda Heron dated 19 September 2026, for the 1974 charter, the absence of parishes, the composition and powers of charter trustees, the section 7 order route, the 30 September 2026 deadline in paragraph 2.8 and the 2029 date in paragraph 15.1, the four options, the precept figures, and Appendices 1 and 2.
- Spelthorne Borough Council, Government intervention, read 24 September 2026, for the 8 May 2025 intervention, the four commissioners and the 31 May 2030 end date.
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