City council spent £236k on plans for boundary shake-up

BROXTOWE LEADER SAYS IT AMOUNTS TO A 'SIMPLE MAP FOR A BLATANT LAND GRAB'

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE

NOTTINGHAM City Council has spent over £230,000 on plans to carve up surrounding towns and villages in what one leader has described as “unbelievable.”

The biggest shakeup of boundaries in 50 years is being planned in Nottinghamshire, a move that will see all existing councils in the area abolished.

Two primary options for what the Nottinghamshire map should look like in future were submitted to the government in 2025, but the Labour-run city council decided to develop its own bespoke option.

A Freedom of Information request by the Post has now revealed that the city council has spent £236,085 developing this proposal - far more than what other councils have spent on the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) process.

Neighbouring Broxtowe Borough Council also spent a significant sum, totalling £102,811, running its own consultation on the LGR process.

Milan Radulovic, the leader of Broxtowe Borough Council on behalf of the Broxtowe Alliance, said: "You'd think by now that the Labour city council couldn't shock me with how they misspend their money.

"But using £230,000 on coming up with a simple map for their blatant land grab is unbelievable.

"In Broxtowe, we spent a fraction of that money on listening to the public, rather than just talking amongst ourselves, and the public told us that they overwhelmingly reject LGR.