Nottingham citizens will gather on the morning of Wednesday 26 June to ensure concerns about cuts in Nottingham are heard by the future Prime Minister.
Candidates will arrive in Nottingham to make their case to the country for the final Question Time Leaders’ debate.
Resolve are rallying all Nottingham anti-cuts campaign groups at the Old Market Square’s Brian Clough statue – a regular site of protest – to raise the local funding crisis and services cuts up the agenda as debate takes place this evening.
The campaign that started to mount a local response to the City Council’s effective bankruptcy, issuing a Section 114 notice in November, and hopes to raise and include local voices in finding solutions.
“We’ve seen almost no talk of the council budgets crisis during this election cycle, nobody seems to have a plan” says Adam Pickering, Facilitator at Resolve.
“The next Government must start placing citizens and local communities like Nottingham at the heart of finding solutions. Local people are already suffering from 14 years of cuts and the cost of living crisis, we can’t take any more punishment.
“We need a system that provides us all the opportunity to have a say in matters that affect us and our environment, and that protects the most vulnerable in our society.”
Nottingham is ranked as one of the most deprived, least healthy local authority areas in the UK and the £1bn in central budget reductions, inflation impacts and increased need for services disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in local communities.
Resolve says that Nottingham citizens are already seeing devastating impacts from the cuts and it is vital that we stand together to call for change. They hope that political parties will pay attention to the plight of the city and other communities in the growing crisis that has seen local authorities struggle to balance their books.
In 2018, Northamptonshire County Council became the first authority to issue a section 114 notice in over 20 years. Since then Slough, Croydon, Thurrock, Woking, and Birmingham City have issued notices and thirteen section 114 notices have been issued in total since 2018 The Local Government Association says that councils’ spending power has dropped 27% since 2010.
In a report released earlier this year, the Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said councils were being hit by “systemic underfunding”, as well as increased costs and demands for services.
