South and Mid Staffordshire or Southern and Mid-Staffordshire is expected to be a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Staffordshire, England. It was planned to be formed on 1 April 2028, with elections planned to take place in May 2027. Its largest settlement will be Tamworth and it will also include Burton upon Trent, Stafford, Lichfield, Cannock, Rugeley, Burntwood, Stone, Uttoxeter and Wombourne. The area has a 2024 estimated population of 682,775.
Plans to create it were halted in September 2026 and the 2027 election was cancelled.
Formation It will be formed from the existing Staffordshire districts of Cannock Chase, East Staffordshire, Lichfield, South Staffordshire, Stafford and Tamworth. Cannock, Stafford, Tamworth and the Rawnsley area are currently unparished, the rest of the area is parished. Tamworth and Stafford are consulting on whether to form parishes (and thus town councils).
The district is being formed as part of ongoing local government changes throughout England, in which all areas of the country that have separate county councils and district councils will see those replaced with single-tier, or unitary, local governance. The two alternative proposals for two unitaries in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, and the proposals for three and four unitaries were not accepted, including Staffordshire County Council's preferred option of an east/west split. The northern part of the county will form a new North Staffordshire authority.
In September 2026, the Staffordshire proposals were halted by the government and placed under review.
Governance It will be run by South and Mid Staffordshire Council, which will comprise 92 councillors.
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