News and political views

Local Government re-organisation proposed for Norfolk

michaelmedwards — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 22:44:00 +0000

.. and along with 2 others suggests Nottingham is more likely to see proposals (in June) that require new boundaries – such as the proposal submitted by Nottingham City Council., which is the built up areas of Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe, and then the part of the county to the west of the A60 for better balance of numbers and to avoid that part of the county being cu off from the county’s main locus.

“The new councils will be centred around King’s Lynn, Norwich and Great Yarmouth“

BBC. Ichef.

“Norwich City Council has long been keen to run itself separately from the rest of Norfolk, and Labour leader Mike Stonard warmly welcomed the news: “We know that when Norwich succeeds, Norfolk succeeds.”“

These proposals are often to referred to as unitary, but with separate fire authorities, Police constabularies, private trusts running schools (and paying their highest managers huge fees) and now an Executive Mayor, with a number of former unitary functions, the organisation of public services is very complicated,. And now the NHS is to receive stronger devolution, the boundaries picked for these don’t match any of the existing boundaries, Plus for this form of local government to work, we’ll need to see some form of localisation – which is why Boroughs and Districts were created anyway. It’s as if the Radcliffe-Maud proposals of the late sixties got the size of strategic authorities wrong by a factor of 2, but by the time we have returned to them – too much else has gone wrong.

St.Patrick’s Day event 2026

michaelmedwards — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:19:00 +0000

Photo album available in Facebook.

FA crowd control procedures trial at England Women’s International

michaelmedwards — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:56:00 +0000

Some significant delays to crowd dispersal prompted by the FA wanting to see spectators kept behind barriers at the end of the match.
Much as this is to be expected as the law requires in April, 2027, it actually demonstrates that what might be required is extra barriers down the centre of Trent Bridge and the closure of the bridge to outbound traffic for 20-30 minutes after a game finished.

Meadows NAT – March 2026

michaelmedwards — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:56:00 +0000

Rehearsed removal of graffiti from bridges over the Trent; rollout of planned increase in street cleaning, and need to clear leaf fall better in the forthcoming year; how the return of free bulky waste collection might be rolled out; grot spots on Electric Avenue and how the installation of bins at 2 of the bus stops might be frustrated; possible preparations for the centenary of the rock gardens at the Memorial Gardens this year and of the gardens as a whole next.

City Council agrees more services and improvements

michaelmedwards — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:59:00 +0000

A new budget has been agreed that builds on the return of national grant enabled by the new Labour government.

Such is the increase, that we did not feel the usual maximum Council tax increase allowed could be justified, even when extra money can be spent in a progressive way. So at 3.5%, we’ve set the lowest increase for 18 years.

Despite the finances being announced 10 weeks ago, it has taken a while to put the total package together, and a further review of the growth in reserves, and the application of the increase in grant announced for years 26/27 and 27/28 still needs to be conducted. This will be complicated a tad if a review of local government in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire is confirmed.

The Council’s debt has dropped dramatically – from £826m to £292m.

Focussing on the revenue budget, the increases, additions and improvements include:
Greener Nottingham:
£3,000k towards revamping Parks for People; £120k for topping up park maintenance; £100k for protecting healthy trees;
Cleaner Nottingham:
over £3,000k for enhanced street cleaning; £683k for free bulky waste collections; £340k for trimming back hedges; £120k for intensive weed removal;
Safer Nottingham:
£455k for strengthening neighbourhood safety;
Young Nottingham:
£1,800k for enhanced youth provision; £750k for a young people’s jobs fund; £500k for free swimming for under 16s; £220k for apprenticeship development; £150k for free books through the Imagination Library; £145k for enrichment activities for young people; £41k for school uniform support;
Ambitious for Nottingham:
£473k for investing in our buildings; £325k for ensuring strong service performance; £300k for improved customer services; £277k for managing our buildings better; £250k for welfare advice; £250k for economic development; £190k for support for Nottingham businesses; £183k for enriching our local communities; £75k for a family support package; £50k for free sanitary products in Council buildings; £48k for supporting our volunteers;
Proud of Nottingham:
£750k for upgrading our roads; £400k for regenerating Nottingham; £282k for cultural investment; £202k for empowering local people through place based partnerships; £200k for free events; £120k to reintroduce the Arrow magazine;

The NPAP said commit more of the (one-off) reserves to pay for (ongoing) services and to pay for taking £2.4 million less in Council tax. These reserves include a £28 million contingency budget for local government re-organisation – which does actually look likely to happen and we will need a reserve to cope with the one-off costs. Some surprise to see more services proposed with less on-going funding by NPAP.

The Independents proposed spending £6.7m of a £7.9m part of our expanded services on other things (often car-orientated) and taking £1.6m less in council tax, without identifying the £6.7m they would not do. They phrased their amendment in terms of 13 reviews, 6 of which were reviews in themselves – and one of those 6 being youth centres – for which we are trying to move Meadows Youth Centre on this week. Their deputy leader spoke for defending community centres, despite having endorsed an Austerity MP for EMCCA Mayor.

I spoke out against each of the amendments so did not give the planned speech on the need for more services beyond this year’s budget, which was drawing from an amble through The Meadows to the cordoned off area I took on Saturday.

When the video for the meeting is published, I’ll add links to the above.

Looking forward to March 2026

michaelmedwards — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 01:04:00 +0000

Advice session, Meadows Library, will be every Wednesday morning, 10:30am – noon

March 2025
Full Council, The Council House, 2nd;

March 2025
Advice session, Meadows Library; 4th;
Advice session, Meadows Library; 11th;
St.Patrick’s Day event, Old Market Square; 17th; (check)
(Executive Board, Loxley House; 17th)
Advice session, Meadows Library; 18th;
Health Scrutiny Committee, Loxley House; 19th, 9:30am;
Advice session, Meadows Library; 25th;
Meadows ward walk, Portland Leisure Centre (check); 26th, 11am;
Audit Committee, Loxley House; 27th;

Meadows ward monthly report 82

michaelmedwards — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:46:00 +0000

Further to Mid-month progress report – February 2026 and Meadows ward monthly report 81

February has ended on a very sour note as a man was shot in a house just off Robin Hood Way. We await news to see if any public policy conclusions are to be drawn. But on ambling through the ward to reach the cordoned off areas, I was reminded of many of the problems that we know we want to address, and some progress will be made by the increased budget to be set at full Council. Getting ready for the budget has taken some time.

In The Meadows, a bit of time spent on residents parking and arrangements for spectators leaving the City Ground (given legislation requires change by April 2027).
Progress on the residents parking permits is varied: the schemes for Quayside Close, Meadow Close on Beauvale Road are approved and may well be implemented in March. There’s hope too that Arkwright Walk might be done in March; more checks are required on the progress of Mundella Road to Mundella Court scheme and the New Meadows home zones scheme.

A by-election in Greater Manchester was another reminder to Labour nationally that the focus needs to be on delivery of improvements; something that is hard to achieve when one of its leading members was exposed to have been sharing commercially sensitive public data. Further distractions now that the Gov’t has to cope with yet another Trump initiative.
In contrast, we remember Jesse Jackson and his visit to Nottingham.

The Winter Olympics brought. some tonic and joy; as did a new manager at Salop who achieved 5 wins on the trot.

Index of February posts.

Murder in Ryeland Gardens

michaelmedwards — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:39:00 +0000

A man has been killed in a house in Ryeland Gardens and the Police have arrested a suspect.
I went down to the neighbourhood, and like the N Post, took photos of the relatively large area cordoned off – the needs of forensic investigations, eh? And the number of officers it takes up.

But travelling to the neighbourhood, I came across many reminders of the huge issues we are setting ourselves to deal with. The new City Council budget is going to help.

LINKS to articles to be added

Trump and Netanyahu order attacks on Iran

michaelmedwards — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:59:00 +0000

Wiki.
Britain hasn’t joined in, but are taking part in defence measures required subsequent to the attacks.
And the UK does condemn the killings of dissidents in Iran.

EMCCA Audit and Governance committee – February 2026

michaelmedwards — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:25:00 +0000

The committee seeks to hold the combined county authority to account in its uses of money and its ways of governance but given the work of the authority up to now has largely been one of allocating grants, it is a bit difficult to actually find fault. Nevertheless, some attempts were made to test where weaknesses might exist.

You can see what happened at committee online, but really there’s very a little to recommend it in terms of entertainment (despite my gag about local government officers going to boootcamps).

LINKS TO BE ADDED