COUNCIL elections will be held in Wales next May regardless of the Welsh Government’s plans to merge local authorities across the country, first minister Carwyn Jones has said.

The Welsh Government had previously presented plans to cut the number of councils in Wales from 22 to eight or nine, including a so-called ‘Super Gwent’ comprising Newport, Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Caerphilly.

But the plans had proven deeply unpopular in many quarters and last week Mr Jones admitted the controversial plan was going back to the drawing board.

Speaking in the Assembly on Tuesday leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew RT Davies asked the first minister about the issue.

“You’ve put a lot of personal political capital into the reorganisation of local government across Wales,” he said.

“Can you confidently say today there will be local government elections in May next year and your government will not be looking to postpone those elections by bringing forward either new proposals for a local government map here in Wales, or indeed actually moving the date so there can be wider consultation over local government reorganisation?”

Mr Jones replied: “I think those elections will take place.

“I can’t envisage a scenario where they wouldn’t.”

He added: “It is clear to me the map would not attract support in this chamber, but I do know in this chamber there is support for local government reorganisation.

“So it’s a question of spending the next few months examining what common ground there may be between the parties until we can remove the situation where we have 22 local authorities, one of which collapsed entirely and six of which were in special measures at some point in education.

“It’s not a sustainable model – there’s not a huge amount of disagreement over that, but it’s a question of whether an agreement can be reached on a cross party basis on a future and a more sustainable arrangement for local government in Wales.”

Meanwhile Newport’s two Labour AMs John Griffiths and Jayne Bryant met with newly-appointed finance and local government secretary Mark Drakeford to make a case against the proposal.

Mr Griffiths, who has represented Newport East since 1999, said: “It’s a matter of retaining Newport’s identity as one of Wales’ new cities and a centre for development.”