Who we are
- Councillor Steve Calvert (Abbey)
- Councillor Julie Chaplain (Abbey)
- Councillor Graham Fletcher (Ruddington)
- Councillor Dora Polenta (Musters)
- Councillor Mike Gaunt (Ruddington)
- Councillor Penny Gowland (Abbey)
- Councillor Liz Plant (Trent Bridge)
- Councillor Dora Polenta (Musters)
- Councillor Jenny Walker (Ruddington)
Our History
We want a public site like this so we can share news of council events, our opinions on topical matters, and attempt to get more people interested in local politics. We’d love to connect to Rushcliffe residents, local Labour Party members, and anyone interested in making decision making an open and inclusive process.
We hope with the help of this site we can get more people to come forward at local elections, to stand as Councillors, and to engage with their community to make a difference.
Use of the site we created has been gifted to the constituency Labour Party to share views and grow our movement.
September 2025
The Full Council meetings since the summer have been downright depressing. There was a meeting on Local Government Reorganisation (2nd Sept ) <a href="http://<a href="http://Youtube pm <a href="http://<a href="http://Youtube am Comment on city at about 1’15 The leading group voted with Tories to put Rushcliffe with north Notts, and Gedling and Broxtowe with the City.…
Local Government Reorganisation- It’s simple
Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) is an opportunity to improve delivery of our local services and undo mistakes made when the City was split from the rest of the County 30 years ago. But unfortunately it seems the process is being undermined by people on all sides of the political spectrum. I wrote a long blog…
Notts CC: Report on Health Scrutiny Committee 1st July 2025 update
Because there are now so few councillors, some party members with particular areas of expertise are helping us to keep abreast of all the meetings, to make sure nothing falls through the net. The following a report from a member on the Health Scrutiny Meeting on 1st July. She has inspired me to try to…
RBC Labour Group Speech on the £64,000 Consultancy Payment
Thank you, Mr Mayor. The Labour Group have submitted an amendment to the recommendations set out by this administration for Rushcliffe’s vision for local government reorganisation — because we believe this proposal is unbalanced, is based on bad data and potentially damaging to not only Rushcliffe but also the wider Nottingham & Nottinghamshire. Unfortunately, despite our…
A Year in Review: From the Rushcliffe Labour Party Chair
“When people realistically look at what the county and districts and boroughs do, they’ll realise the borough doesn’t have much responsibility, yet somewhere like Rushcliffe is holding onto a lot of money.”
The first 6 weeks at County Hall
This is just a quick post to fill in on what has happened. Unfortunately we did not gain any councillors in the Mansfield North by election last week, despite a heroic effort by many people there. Canvassing there made it clear that Labour has a lot of work to do to win back people’s trust…
First meeting of the County Council May 2025
First full Nottinghamshire County Council meeting was last Thursday. The photo shows our small Nottinghamshire Labour group now. It is very sad that we have lost so many hardworking experienced councillors (and members of group staff), particularly our previous leader Kate. It is also sad that so many enthusiastic candidates didn’t get elected. However, although we are small…
Local Government Reorganisation
Local Government Reorganisation is causing a lot of discussion at the moment. First it is probably useful to explain that in West Bridgford we pay our council tax to Rushcliffe Borough Council who provide services like parks and rubbish collection. But Rushcliffe then pass on most of the money to Nottinghamshire County Council (NottsCC) who…
International Events in West Bridgford
The Football, Cricket and Rugby grounds are running ever more events with ever larger crowds: sports, music, beer festivals and drone shows. We all want these venues to be successful but not at the expense of residents. It isn’t true that we knew it would be like this when we moved in as matches and…
Democracy for West Bridgford
If you live in West Bridgford, most of your local services, including adult social care, education, public health, transport and waste disposal, are provided by the County Council, whilst the rest (waste collection, care of some green spaces, planning etc), are provided by Rushcliffe Borough Council. However, if you live anywhere else in Rushcliffe your…
Early thoughts on Local Government Re-organisation in Nottinghamshire 2025
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…
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The Labour Party in Rushcliffe 