Elections to the 11 new councils won't take place until 2011.

NIO minister Shaun Woodward has announced that the local government elections due to take place in Northern Ireland in 2009 have been put back to 2011 at the request of executive ministers.

Effectively the councillors who were elected for 4 year terms in 2005 are getting the length of their contracts extended by 50%. The official reason is something to do with the local government reform that will see the reshaping of the council boundaries and the reduction in the number of councils from 26 to 11.

What I want to know is which executive ministers, and why? I have my suspicions about certain currently dominant parties being worried about losing vote share with voters quickly realising that this wonderful new dispensation has delivered precisely the square root of fuck all, but of course they are only suspicions.