City's expansion plan 'not feasible' in short timescale

NEWARK AND SHERWOOD LEADER SAYS BOUNDARY COMMISSION EXPERTS WOULD NEED TO REDRAW CHANGES BEFORE 2031

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE Oliver [e-mail]

THE biggest shakeup to Nottinghamshire’s boundaries for 50 years could be followed by even further changes as the city council is told its expansion plans are not “feasible”.

Parts of Nottinghamshire could effectively be split into two under the city council's plans, which could see a bigger Nottingham council covering parts of Gedling, Rushcliffe and Broxtowe.

Councils across Nottinghamshire are set to be abolished in a move that could see just two new councils being created to cover the entire county and city - one of which could be called the Sherwood Forest council and the other the Greater Nottingham council.

New authorities are set to become operational from 2028 but even after that point, leaders now say further boundary changes, including a further potential expansion of the city, could be on the cards.

The new Labour government announced soon after getting into office that it wanted to simplify the structure of local councils, partly to save money. Councils like Nottingham operate all local authority services in their area, but the rest of Nottinghamshire uses a two-tier system.

The larger authority, in this case Nottinghamshire County Council, runs big services like roads and social care. Smaller district and borough councils, of which Nottinghamshire has seven, then run local services like parks and bin collections.

The government wants to abolish the two-tier system so that all councils across the country become unitaries like Nottingham. Leaders of all the current nine councils in Nottinghamshire and Nottingham have been working since December on plans for the future of the county and city map.