Nottingham City Council

Nottingham City Council is the local authority for the city of Nottingham in the East Midlands of England. It has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1998, when responsibility for every local government service inside the city boundary transferred from the two tier system previously shared with Nottinghamshire County Council. Around 320,000 people live in the area it administers, which makes Nottingham one of the larger unitary districts in the country.

The council's administrative headquarters are at Loxley House on Station Street, directly opposite Nottingham railway station. Civic and ceremonial business takes place at the Council House, the domed building on Old Market Square completed in 1929.

Governance and structure

Fifty five councillors represent the city's twenty wards, with whole council elections normally held every four years. Decision making follows the leader and cabinet model. The leader is appointed by the full council and allocates portfolios covering finance, housing, children and young people, adult social care and other service areas to cabinet colleagues. Overview and scrutiny committees examine decisions and call officers and portfolio holders to account, and an audit committee oversees financial governance. A Lord Mayor, chosen each year from among the councillors, chairs full council meetings and represents the city at ceremonial events.

The wards stretch from Bulwell and Bestwood in the north through Basford, Sherwood, St Ann's and Sneinton to Wollaton, Lenton, The Meadows and Clifton in the south and west. Each ward has its own councillors who hold surgeries for residents.

Services for residents

The council collects council tax, administers housing benefit and council tax support, maintains the electoral register and registers births, deaths and marriages. It coordinates admissions for primary and secondary schools across the city and arranges home to school transport for eligible pupils. Adult social care and children's services take the largest share of the budget, covering safeguarding, adoption, placements for children in care, care assessments, support for older residents and provision for disabled people. Trading standards, licensing of taxis and premises that sell alcohol, and food safety inspections also sit with the authority.

Housing and neighbourhoods

Nottingham City Council is one of the largest social landlords in the East Midlands. It has managed its stock of roughly 25,000 council homes directly since 2023, when the service returned in house from an arms length management organisation. Tenants apply through a common housing register, report repairs online or by phone and can get money and tenancy advice from support teams. Neighbourhood services deal with fly tipping, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, noise complaints and pest control, while community protection officers patrol local centres and respond to antisocial behaviour reports.

Waste, recycling and climate

General waste and recycling bins are emptied on alternating weekly collections, and households can subscribe to a garden waste service that runs through the growing season. Bulky items and electricals can be taken to the city's household waste and recycling centre. The council has set out to make Nottingham the first carbon neutral city in the United Kingdom by 2028. Work under the programme includes insulating council homes, converting the municipal vehicle fleet to electric power and extending the district heating network fed by the Eastcroft energy from waste plant, which warms buildings across the city centre.

Transport and city development

Municipal involvement in public transport runs deeper in Nottingham than in most English cities. The council is the majority shareholder in Nottingham City Transport, the principal bus operator, and it promoted the Nottingham Express Transit tram system, which opened in 2004 and doubled in length in 2015 with new lines to Clifton and to Toton Lane via Beeston.

Workplace parking levy

In 2012 the council introduced the first workplace parking levy in the United Kingdom, a charge on employers who provide eleven or more liable parking spaces for staff. Proceeds part funded the tram extensions, the rebuilding of Nottingham railway station and the Link bus services. Transport planners from other British cities have since studied the scheme while preparing similar proposals.

The planning service determines applications, enforces building regulations and looks after conservation areas and listed buildings. Much recent attention has centred on Broadmarsh, where the council is overseeing the phased redevelopment of a demolished shopping centre site. A new car park, bus station and central library building have already opened there, along with a public green space on part of the cleared land.

Culture, parks and leisure

Several of the city's best known heritage attractions belong to the council. Nottingham Castle, a ducal mansion on a sandstone rock above the city centre, reopened in 2021 after a lengthy renovation of its galleries, grounds and cave passages and is now run directly by the authority. Wollaton Hall, an Elizabethan mansion set in a 500 acre deer park, holds the natural history collections, and Newstead Abbey, once home to the poet Lord Byron, lies a few miles north of the city.

Library provision centres on the Central Library that opened on Carrington Street in November 2023, supported by branch libraries in the suburbs. The council also runs leisure centres and swimming pools, maintains more than 130 parks and open spaces and stages Goose Fair, the travelling funfair held at the Forest Recreation Ground each October and recorded in the city for more than 700 years. Old Market Square hosts a Christmas market, a summer beach and other seasonal events through the year.

Residents can reach the council by telephone, in person at Loxley House or through online accounts that cover most routine transactions, from reporting a missed bin collection to paying a penalty charge notice.

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