Gedling Borough Council is one of seven local authorities who have issued a joint statement in reaction to comments made by Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) on Wednesday (1) over the release of a report on the future of local government in the county.
NCC and Rushcliffe Borough Council have stated they are ‘disappointed’ by the rushed release of a draft Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) report and have refused to publish the document which seven of the county’s other authorities released to the public on Wednesday.
The report that has highlighted two in three residents are not in favour of possible changes, with only 30% of the 11,000 respondents supporting plans for reorganisation in Nottinghamshire
All councils agreed on asking for residents’ views on three possible ways Nottinghamshire councils could be reshaped.
Option one involves Nottingham city, Broxtowe and Gedling merging to become one unitary authority.
Bassetlaw, Mansfield, Ashfield, Rushcliffe, and Newark and Sherwood would combine to establish a second.
Option two involves Nottingham city joining with Broxtowe and Rushcliffe, with the other districts and boroughs combining to create another separate authority.
Option three involves keeping the current boundary between the city and the county in place but eliminating the two-tiered system in the latter.
Councils were sent the report on Monday (September 29) evening, but NCC and RBC have highlighted its publication so quickly does not provide the full analysis or the full data and with such a short amount of time to consider the report, it pays lip service to the residents who did take the time to express their views.
NCC and RBC leaders said that over 20,000 people signed petitions about the Government’s forced reorganisation, whereas they say the consultation exercise held over the summer only reached 11,000 people – less than 1% of the City and County population.
Council Leaders, Councillor Mick Barton (NCC) and Councillor Neil Clarke (RBC) said: “Under 24 hours to review and publish a lengthy and incredibly important report that could form a cornerstone of the future of local government in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire is irresponsible. The Councils who chose to make this report public prematurely are letting local people down.”
“This engagement is not finished and so far has failed to reach most of our residents and businesses. The only clear message from this report is that two in three people here in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire do not want the Labour Government’s reorganisation.
We have seen statements and social media content from Nottinghamshire County Council, and Rushcliffe Borough Council on the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire LGR engagement exercise. There are a number of inaccuracies we feel we need to address.
Nottinghamshire’s borough and district councils released a joint statement last night in response to Cllr Barton and Clarke’s comments.
It said: “The engagement exercise was a jointly commissioned, independent exercise and paid for by all nine Councils. Nottinghamshire County Council was fully involved in the exercise, and indeed Councillor Barton chaired the meeting in which the approach was agreed.
“References on the County Council’s own website on 4 August and again on 22 August demonstrate their involvement. They also promoted the survey through their social media channels, as part of an agreed and collaborative approach.
“The majority of councils asked that the results from the independent report were published, in the interest of being open and transparent. On seeing the independent report, Nottinghamshire County Council and Rushcliffe Borough Council, did not want it to be shared.
“Reorganisation isn’t something that the councils have asked for, but the Government has set extremely tight timescales that we need to meet. And we collectively agreed to do this in an open and transparent way.”
A spokesperson for the councils said: “To be fair to all those who completed the survey, we believe the results should be available to them, in keeping with our agreed open and transparent approach to LGR in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. It was always envisaged the report would be published, and in our view, the public have the right to see it.”
