Nottinghamshire County Council has backed a proposal to merge Nottingham City Council with authorities in Gedling and Broxtowe as part of the incoming shake-up of local government.
According to documents released ahead of a full council meeting next Tuesday (September 2), the council’s leader, Mick Barton (Ref), is set to ask councillors to approve the merging of Nottingham, Gedling, and Broxtowe as the preferred option for the incoming plans to shake up Nottinghamshire’s local authorities.
In December 2024, the Labour Government’s English Devolution White Paper announced plans to reorganise areas made up of two-tier local authorities – including Nottinghamshire – where responsibilities are currently split between county and district councils to create new, larger, single-tier, unitary authorities.
All nine of Nottinghamshire’s councils discussed three core reorganisation options in March 2025 to form a submission to the government that same month.
In June 2025, the government provided interim feedback to English councils on the plans, which lessened the original 500,000-resident target for new unitaries and boundary change stipulations.
The core options for reorganisation in Nottinghamshire were then reduced to two, though this does not mean councils cannot submit alternative options for council reshaping by the government’s November deadline.
One option combines Nottingham, Broxtowe and Gedling. The second option combines Nottingham, Broxtowe and Rushcliffe. A second unitary containing the remainder of the county is featured in both options.
Earlier in August, Cllr Barton told the local democracy reporting service that his personal view was that the option combining Nottingham, Broxtowe, and Gedling as one unitary was best based on “evidence”.
He said: “We’ve got a lot of need in the north of county regarding adult social care and children’s services and SEND – it takes a lot of finance in the north of county.
“[I think this option] balances up per head across the county – we want to make sure everybody’s services stay at a really good level and improve where we can.”
Now, it appears this stance has been formalised and will be discussed and debated in next week’s full council meeting.
Despite the two core options being deliberated across Nottinghamshire councils, alternative options have also been discussed by various leaders and councillors.
Earlier in August, Nottingham City Council leader, Neghat Khan (Lab), proposed a different city boundary expansion that would see borough towns, such as West Bridgford and Beeston, included in a city boundary expansion rather than boroughs as a whole.
Also, earlier this month, Nottinghamshire Conservative Councillors called for further reorganisation options to be explored with full business cases rather than the “forced” two options, saying respectable alternative options were “gathering dust”.
Nottinghamshire councils have a November deadline to set out their preferences. After this, the government will make the final call on how the new boundaries should look in early 2026.
Any new councils are then set to become operational in April 2028 after elections in May 2027.
Further details on Nottinghamshire County Council’s stance on the incoming shake-up of the area’s local authority boundaries will be discussed in next week’s meeting.
