By Cllr Steve Calvert
I worked for Nottinghamshire County Council for thirty years up to 2011, the last five years as a Director responsible for Strategic Transport, Planning and the Environment.
I have also been an elected Nottinghamshire County Councillor from 2013-17, serving as Vice-Chair of the Transport and Highways Committee.
In 2023 I was elected as a Rushcliffe Borough Councillor representing Abbey Ward in West Bridgford.
I mention the above to demonstrate that I have wide experience of the workings of local government throughout Nottinghamshire.
Before examining the current LGR situation I have one anecdote from the last major LGR exercise in the mid 1990s that led to the current two-tier system. I was part of a small working group of 3 officers set up by the County Council to identify the most effective boundaries for unitary councils in Nottinghamshire taking account of a range of factors with “Community Identity” regarded as particularly important. I am not at liberty to say what our conclusions were, but I can say that we all agreed that the outstanding option was for 3 Unitaries. We also all concluded that because the proposed boundaries made such good sense they would have no chance of ever being implemented by the politicians. We were proved right then, but now there is a possibility that we might ultimately be proved wrong!
The latest Government proposals for LGR were published in December 2024. It is aimed at two-tier areas and for those unitary councils where there is evidence of failure or where their size or boundaries may be hindering their ability to deliver sustainable and high-quality services for their residents.
My comments below address the need to create Unitary Authorities throughout Nottinghamshire and to remove the tight boundaries that currently hinder service delivery in the Unitary Nottingham City Council. I will focus particularly on the relationship between the City Council and Rushcliffe Borough. It is also assumed that the County boundaries of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire should remain intact although there are some very close ties across them.
- The City and its surrounding Boroughs are dependent on each other.
In simple terms the City provides the jobs and the Boroughs provide the workers. There are of course plenty of job opportunities within the Boroughs. However, in Rushcliffe there are a lot more workers than jobs, not surprising given the proximity of West Bridgford to the City, where around a third of Rushcliffe’s residents work.
There is also an acknowledgement that the Nottingham Housing Market area extends well beyond the City boundary and reaches deep into the neighbouring Boroughs. It is not surprising that after the failed attempt to replace County Structure Plans with Regional Plans, the Government encouraged the setting up of the Greater Nottingham Planning Partnership in 2008 which has managed the allocation of land for new housing and employment sites. The latest review of the Greater Nottingham Strategic Plan which covers the plan period up to 2041 was approved for consultation by the City Council and the Boroughs of Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe in October 2024.
The Greater Nottingham Area has a national reputation for its public transport service with two high performing bus companies and a popular tram network. It successfully services the main built up area and the key villages in the Boroughs but struggles in areas of low demand in the rural areas.
2. The inter-dependency between the Boroughs and the City diminishes the further you go from the City.
This is fairly obvious but it is worth noting as already some Councillors from the rural areas of Rushcliffe have been making assumptions that their own disconnection from the City applies throughout the Borough. I support a Unitary authority that includes the City and extends well into the neighbouring Boroughs. The question is how far. This is not a takeover by the City but a brand new Authority which can be built around the strengths of all the existing Authorities, including the County Council.
3. Nottingham City is almost unique in having a boundary so tight that it excludes many of its suburbs which make up almost half of the population of the built up area.
Most of the social need in the Greater Nottingham area is concentrated in the Unitary City Council area. Unlike the Boroughs, it is responsible for all local government services including adult social care and children’s safeguarding which account for the majority of its budget. It is the County Council that is responsible for those services in the Boroughs. It is no coincidence that the County Council has similar budget problems to the City but its areas of high social need are largely in the north of the County.
This boundary anomaly is of particular importance as it affects local authority finance and the amount of Council tax raised per household. The suburbs, on average, have much higher valued homes than the inner City so raise more money per household.
A key factor for the prosperity of any City region is the quality of the City Centre. Nottingham is the County’s principle shopping, leisure, office and cultural destination, and it is an attractive place to live and work. Nottingham City Centre performs a central roll in the conurbation’s economy and its wider regeneration objectives.
The existing boundaries of the City Council and Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC) have had unfortunate consequences for those who are concerned about “One Party States”. RBC has been a one party state since its creation in 1974. Since the City became a Unitary Authority in 1998 it too has had no change of control.
4. A new Unitary Council for Greater Nottingham will be able to employ many excellent Directors, Managers and other staff from all the existing Councils.
It is wrong and misleading to imply that a new Unitary Council that includes the existing Nottingham City and the remainder of the built up area and possibly some or all of the rural parts of the neighbouring Borough Councils is a new “City Council”.
It will be a completely new Council with new electoral wards and it is quite possible that the majority of the new electorate will be resident outside the current City Boundary. The most recent population estimates have the City population at 328,000 and the combined populations of Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe at 347,200.
Furthermore, there should be a recruitment process for local government employees that is equitable no matter whether they are currently working for the County Council, the City Council or one of the Borough Councils.
Cllr. Steve Calvert
Rushcliffe Borough Council (Abbey Ward)
The Labour Party in Rushcliffe 
Thank you to Steve Calvert for his useful piece. I too have experience of local government having worked all my career (now retired) at Notts County, Leicester City and Nottingham City Councils. I have long considered the boundary of the City Council to be unjust in that it distorts the proportions of the property values and peoples incomes within or outside the City. As Steve has indicated, unlike just about every other city in the country, the richer suburbs here are largely outside the City boundary so the better off residents outside the boundary have easy access to all the city’s attractions but do not contribute to these benefits through council tax. To reduce this inequality, the boundary should change.
Patrick ARMSTRONG.
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