Central government confirmed its plans for the future of local government in Nottinghamshire on 16 July 2026.
On 7 September 2026 government announced that it would be undertaking a review of the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) programme nationally. Government outlined that decisions relating to four LGR areas will be ‘withdrawn’, and that a further 14 areas, including Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, will be ‘paused’ while a review is carried out. Read more on the news page.
On 29 October government confirmed that that a number of ministerial decisions on its national LGR programme have been ‘withdrawn’ as part of a wider review, including for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. The government has confirmed that Local Government Reorganisation will continue, with a new decision to be made by early 2027, based on the proposals already submitted and assessed against the original criteria. Read more on the news page.
The government had initially confirmed its decision in a letter to Chief Executives. It had been decided to implement the proposal brought forward by Nottingham City Council which would replace the nine existing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire councils and create two, single-tier unitary councils.
The proposed two new councils were;
An address checker is available to help residents identify which unitary authority their address would fall within if they were established.
In the short term, there will be no change to existing services. All services currently delivered by the nine affected councils will continue as normal.
LGR proposals* were submitted to central government in November 2025. A government-led statutory consultation took place between February and March 2026. This was followed by visits to Nottinghamshire by officials from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government ahead of the decision. The results of the statutory consultation are available on the government website.
Work has begun on planning the transition towards the creation of the new unitary councils. Elections for these new unitary councils will take place in May 2028. This will create shadow authorities ahead of the new councils being formally established in April 2029. Local elections will take place in May 2027, based on existing council boundaries.
Any final decision on the future options must receive parliamentary approval before they can be implemented.
*Two other proposals were submitted, one by Nottinghamshire County Council and Rushcliffe Borough Council, the other by Bassetlaw District Council, Gedling Borough Council, Mansfield District Council and Newark and Sherwood District Council. Ashfield District Council did not express a preference between the options, and Broxtowe Borough Council decided not to support any of the proposals and requested that the LGR process be paused to enable more detailed consideration.
The government has confirmed that a number of ministerial decisions on its national LGR programme have been ‘withdrawn’ as part of a wider review.
In Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, the government has confirmed that Local Government Reorganisation will continue, with a new decision to be made by early 2027, based on the proposals already submitted and assessed against the original criteria.
